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BLOOD OF THINGS 

ALFRED KREYMBORG 



BOOKS BY ALFRED KBEYMBORO 

Moods and Studies (Out of print) 

Apostrophes (Out of print) 

Erna Vitek, a Novel 

Mushrooms 

Plays for Poem-Mimes 

Blood of Things 

Plays for Merry Andrews (In preparation) 

Editor of the New Verse Anthologies, 

Others, For 1916 

Others, For 1917 

Others, For 1919 



BLOOD OF THINGS 

A Second Book of Free Forms 



BY 

ALFRED KREYMBORG 

Author of * 'Mushrooms,** "Plays for 
Poem-Mimes,*' etc. 



NICHOLAS L. BROWN 
NEW YORK MCMXX 



Copyright, 1920, by 
NICHOLAS L. BROWN 



Poems in this volume have ap- 
peared in the following periodi- 
cals, to which the author makec 
his acknowledgment: 

The Bookman- 
Bruno Chap Books 
Cartoons 

The Catholic Anthology 
The Crisis 
The Dial 
The Free Spirit 
The Little Review 
The Modern School 
The New Republic 
The New York Tribune 
Others 
Playboy 

Poetry, A Magazine op Verse 
The Poetry Journal 
The Poetry Review of America 
The Seven Arts 



©CIA576050 



AlJii \2 ib20 



To 

DOROTHY KREYMBORG 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

TETE-A-TETE 13 

CLAVICHORD 14 

MIDNIGHT CAPRICE 16 

PEBBLE, SONG AND WATER-FALL 19 

NUN SNOW: A PANTOMIME OF BEADS ... 29 

ZOOLOGY 26 

Syllogism 26 

Parrakeets 26 

Owls 26 

Camels 27 

Worms 28 

Robins 28 

ducklikgs 29 

Roaches 29 

Primer 30 

Hen-Beino 30 

Geometry 33 

Rhymes 34 

ARIAS AND ARIETTES 35 

Serexata 35 

Valse 36 

Grasses 36 

Tiger-Lily 37 

Harvest Dirge 39 

Roundelay 39 

Indian Sky 40 

Indian Summer 41 

Arabs 42 

Mirage 43 

Patch 43 

Threnody .44 

Sun-Water 45 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Keg 46 

The Hudson 46 

GOLDPIECES AND HEMSTITCHES 48 

Bell 48 

GoU)PIECE3 48 

ClL\DLE 49 

Chikaman 49 

Cries 50 

Mollusc 50 

BoY-LlGHTKING 50 

Hemstitches 51 

Polysyllable 52 

Clo\t:r 53 

Rouge 54 

Katydids 58 

OLD PEOPLE 60 

Endings 60 

Phallic 61 

A While 62 

Middle-Age 63 

Old Marriage 63 

Old Beggar Heels 64 

Triangles 64 

PROSE RHYTHMS, 1906 66 

A Lover Tells 66 

A Poor Man Tells 66 

A Madman Tells 67 

A Dead Man Tells 68 

DOROTHY 70 

Her Eyes 70 

Her Hair 71 

Her Hands 71 

Her Body 72 

Clay 73 

Ovals 73 

Alchemy 73 

Others 73 

Three 74 

Westminster 75 

Agate 75 

Illusions 75 

Jade 75 

Image 76 



CONTENTS 

PAOE 

BLOOD OF THINGS 78 

Scrap 78 

Pump 78 

Puddle 78 

Show-Case 79 

Cigar-Indian 79 

Cigar-Butt 80 

Letter-Box 80 

Dust 81 

Park-Bench 81 

Weighing-Machine 82 

Dung 82 

Electric Sign 83 

Bits 84 

COINS 85 

Copper 85 

Silver 85 

Gold 86 

THE ROUND OF A FIVE AND TEN CENT STORE . 87 

Things 87 

Ring 87 

Hatchet Versus Hammer 88 

Paper Roses 88 

Thimble 89 

Coffee-Mill 89 

Dishes 89 

Mouse-Trap 90 

Aisles 90 

Nickels and Dimes 91 

Round 91 

PHYSIOLOGY 93 

Leaves 92 

Eyes 93 

Stomach 94 

Heart 95 

Brains 96 

CITY DANDELIONS 97 

Jasmine Way 97 

Lanes 97 

City Dandelions 98 

Testaments 99 

Manufacture 99 

Landowner 100 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Roman Hunger 101 

Heredity 102 

That Is 104 

D^R^GLE 105 

32^ Fahrenheit 107 

On DiT 108 

Heliotrope 109 

Wedlock 109 

Rooms 110 

Carbon-Dioxide Ill 

17 + 4x3 — 112 

Such and Such 114 

Fifth Avenue 115 

Propaganda 117 

Chess Players 120 

Miss Sal's Monologue 125 

CROWNS AND CRONIES 130 

Vision 130 

Cronies 131 

Indoors 131 

To THE Others 132 

To W. C. W. M. D 133 

To A Small Sculptor 134 

Greek or Perhaps Roman Epigram 135 

Screen Dance 136 

To Whitman 137 

Red Chant 137 

The Nobility 139 

Self-Esteem 139 

Poetry 140 

Patriot 141 

1914 

Pasts 142 

Christianity 142 

You Therje 143 

The Next Drink 144 

Conjugation 145 

Rococo Kinsmen 147 

Arrows 148 

Need I Say, Where? 149 

INITIALS 150 

WORD 151 



BLOOD OF THINGS 

ALFRED KREYMBORG 



BLOOD OF THINGS 

A SECOND BOOK OF FREE FORMS 

TETE-A-TETE 

In the whither of you, 

there are deathless things, 

some foolish, 

some fine, 

I might beckon you to ? — 

I'm bone and flesh, 

blood and brain 

of a sort for a start? — 

with an instrument, 

you can see and hear, 

I stroke 

to a sort of a start? — 

I'm groping my way ? — 
seeking my self? — 
yes ! — but — 
I might prove the 
way to finding you ? — 
13 



14 BLOOD OF THINGS 

accidentally touch 

some phrase in my riddle, 

solving you 

though it doesn't solve me ? 

No? — but — 
listen to me — 
going to you! 



CLAVICHORD 

If you stand where I stand — 

in my boudoir — 

(don't mind my shaving — 

I can't afford a barber) — 

you can see into her boudoir — 

you can see milady — 

her back, her green smock, the bench she loves 

her hair always down in the morning — 

black, and nearly as long as the curtains — 

with ringlets at the tips — 

the hairdresser called this a. m. — 

him I have to, I want to afford. 

Unhappily, you can't see her face — 

only the back of her small round head — 

and a glint of her ears, two glints — 

but her hands, alas, not her hands, though 

happily, you can hear them. 



BLOOD OF THINGS IS 

It isn't a clavichord — 

only a satinwood square — 

bought cheap at an auction — 

but it might be, you'd think it, 

a clavichord, bequeathed by the past — 

it sounds quite like feathers. 

Bach? Yes, who else could that be — 

whom else would you have in the morning — 

with the sun and milady? 

Grave? Yes, but so is the sun — 

not always ? No, but please don't ponder — 

listen, hear the theme — 

hear it dig into the earth of harmonies. 

A dissonance? No, it's only a stone — 

which powders into particles with the rest. 

Now follow the theme — 

down, down, into the soil — 

calling, evoking the spirit of birth — 

you hear those new tones — 

that sprinkle, that burst — 

roulade and arpeggio? 

Gently now, firmly — 

with solemn persuasion — 

hiding a whimsic raillery — 

(does a dead king raise his forefinger?) — 

though they would, though they might — 

no phrase can escape — 

the theme rules. 

Unhappy ? No, 



16 BLOOD OF THINGS 

they ought to be happy — 

each is because of, in spite of, the other — 

that is democracy — 

he can't spare a particle — 

that priest of the morning sun. 

A mistake ? Yes indeed, but — 

all the more human — 

would you have her drum like a schoolmaster 

abominable right note at the right time — 

in the morning, so early — 

or ever at all? — 

she'll play it again — 

oh don't, please don't clap — 

you'll disturb them ! 

Here, try my tobacco — 

good, a deep pipeful, eh ? — 

an aromatic blend — 

my other extravagance — 

yes, I'll join you, but wait — 

I must first dry my face ! 



MIDNIGHT CAPRICE 

Prisoner there, 

I would bring you — 

what is it? — 

what shall I call it ? — 

no, midnight between us, 



BLOOD OF THINGS 17 

scarce any feeling can find you. 

Ah, I have a light in me — 

where is the light in me? — 

and you have a light in you — 

haven't you a light in you ? — 

but the corridor — 

where is the corridor? — 

however I call or you yearn, 

is there a corridor? 

I could sneak you a thought — 

would the gaoler see a thought? — 

which might reach — what is it ? — 

the chink in you? 

Even so — 

what thought has a body, 

knees, arms, hands, a mouth? — 

has thought a body, can thought touch 

thought ? — 
nor can I find the chink in me — 
have I a chink in me ? 
Prisoner there, 
sing you to yourself, 
sing I to myself — 
this be our courtship ! 
Nay, I came from the cell 
of a woman once — 
she had a light in her — 
she had a corridor — 
she sneaked me out to me — 



18 BLOOD OF THINGS 

was the gaoler away ? 

Even so — 

what body has a thought 

to remember that ? — 

or how it was done ? — 

and how to do it again? — 

were I mother to myself, 

could I do it? — 

ah ! were I mother to myself, 

and you father to yourself — 

is that our corridor? 

Prisoner there — look — 

can you see from where you are ? — 

have you a sorrow ? — 

is that your sorrow, 

silver hood and silver cloak, 

dainty hands and dainty feet, 

dancing a slow step with mine ? — 

what a happy movement now ! — 

one can fairly hear a gigue ! 

Or has that fop of a moon — 

come through a flimsy cloud • — 

like a rider through a hoop — 

for another caprice with the stars? 

foppery courts frippery? 

Even so, 

cannot ever sorrows meet? 



BLOOD OF THINGS 19 



PEBBLE, SONG AND WATER FALL 

Have yovL a religion, 

a philosophy, 

a theory or two or three? — 

bring them out here — 

a bath in this air won't hurt them — 

or you can keep them in your pockets — 

nobody here for you to show them to, 

for you and your thought to be doubted by — 

and scatter them at the last 

(you may find them useless?) 

down the mountain slope — 

poke them with a stick 

and watch them slide 

over strange soil and past stranger surroundings, 

only to bounce and skip and twirl and fly — 

(fancy the joy they'd have, 

pent up as they were back East !) 

then to nestle out of sight, 

beyond all argumentation I 

Have you no religion, 

no philosophy, 

no theory or two or three? — 

you can pick them up, 

have them for the mere stooping, 

or break them, pluck them pleasantly — 

Indian paint-brush. 



20 BLOOD OF THINGS 

baby-blue-eyes, 

forget-me-not, 

the yellow monkey-weed — 

dizzier climbing 

(like a bug up the side of a wall !) 

will give you clouds of wild lilac, 

or wild clematis, 

or a spray of the manzanita, 

so named by the race of Fray Junipero 1 

Or come and steal a bird song — 

(the mocking bird will teach you how!) 

or don't steal it — 

let them play on you, 

(so many snatches the birds have here!) 

let them start innocent counterpoint 

with the aid of the wood-choir falls, 

these water falls 

the high snow and higher sun 

contrive with the aid of the chance of the day ! 

Pebble, song, or water fall, 

pebble, song, or water fall — 

which one will you choose? — 

(why not have them all?) 

there's only the sky — 

and this is a sky. Brother, 

this great Sierra sky, 

big and round and blue, 

meeting the horizon wherever you stare — 

there's only this sky 



BLOOD OF THINGS 21 

to see what you do or don't do — 

(it doesn't spy!) 

and these trees ! These trees ? — 

out here they're so still and so silent, 

you'd fancy them dead — 

they don't even whisper a ghostly phrase — 

and if they have thoughts, 

(like the folk back East !) 

they have a way of sharing them 

without polluting the air with conjecture — 

and there's no wind to carry their gossip, 

if of a sudden they gossiped a trifle ! 

Let us go — 

you and I — 

with creeds — 

without creeds — 

or with and without — 

the mountains out here — 

these gray Sierra elephants — 

you can crawl up their sides — 

and from high broad shoulder to higher and 

highest — 
(if there is a highest?) 
they won't shrug you off — 
not that they're docile — 
they simply don't care 1 
Nevertheless and notwithstanding, 
for the sake of imbroglio — 
suppose we gave them a tickle or two 



22 BLOOD OF THINGS 

right through their hides to a rib or two? — 

(elephants must have a rib somewhere?) 

and suppose they did mind and did shrug us off? 

Pebble, song, or water fall — 

which one would you choose 

for toppling and sliding and bouncing 

and skipping and twirling and flying? — 

(fancy the joy we'd have, 

pent up as we were back East!) 

but why not have all three ? — 

pebble, song, and water fall, 

pebble, song, aTid water fall — 

then to nestle out of sight, 

beyond all argumentation! 

Come on. Brother ! 

But wait ! 

One moment ! 

Don't forget to bring your humility ! 



NUN SNOW: 

A PANTOMIME OF BEADS 

Earth Voice 

Is she 

thoughtless of life, 

a lover of imminent death, 

Nun Snow 



BLOOD OF THINGS 23 

touching her strings of white beads ? 

Is it her unseen hands 

which urge the beads to tremble ? 

Does Nun Snow, 

aware of the death she must die alone, 

away from the nuns 

of the green beads, 

of the ochre and brown, 

of the purple and black — 

does she improvise 

along those soundless strings 

in the worldly hope 

that the answering, friendly tune, 

the faithful, folk-like miracle, 

will shine in a moment or two? 

Moon Voice 

Or per adventure, 

are the beads merely wayward, 

on an evening so soft, 

and One Wind 

is so gentle a mesmerist 

as he draws them and her with his hand? 

Earth Voice 

Was it Full Moon, 

who contrives tales of this order, 

and himself loves the heroine, 

Nun Snow — ■ 



24 BLOOD OF THINGS 

Wind Voice 

Do you see his beads courting hers ? — 

lascivious monk I — 

Earth Voice 

Was it Full Moon, 

slyly innocent of guile, 

propounder of sorrowless whimseys, 

who breathed that suspicion? 

Is it One Wind, 

the wily, scholarly pedant — 

is it he who retorts — 

Wind Voice 

Like olden allegros 

in olden sonatas, 

all tales have two themes, 

she is beautiful, 

he is beautiful, 

with the traditional movement, 

their beads court each other, 

revealing a cadence as fatally true 

as the sum which follows a one-plus-one 

so, why inquire further? 

Nay, inquire further, 

deduce it your fashion ! 

Nun Snow, 

as you say, 

touches her strings of white beads, 

Full Moon, 



BLOOD OF THINGS 25 



let you add, 

his lute of yellow strings ; 

and, Our Night 

is square, nay, 

Our Night 

is round, nay, 

Our Night 

is a blue balcony — 

and therewith close your inquisition 



Earth Voice 

Who urged the beads to tremble? 

They're stiU now ! 

Fallen, or cast over me ! 

Nun, Moon and Wind are gone ! 

Are they betraying her? — 

Moon Voice 
Ask our Night — 

Earth Voice 

Did the miracle appear? — 

Moon Voice 

Ask Our Night, 

merely a child on a balcony, 

letting down her hair and 

black beads, a glissando — 

ask her what she means, 

dropping the curtain so soon ! 



ZOOLOGY 



SYLLOGISM 



Love is an old dog 

who is faithful 

to his master heritage. 

Even when Life, 

that old house cat, 

scratches him, 

he returns to the hearth — 

his tail down, 

but his tail wagging. 

On rare occasion, 

she lets him sleep near her — 

in the coal bin. 

PARRAKEETS 

If you don't put two in a cage, 
parrakeets die. 
Please put two in a cage, 
whoever you are? 

OWLS 

Blue Sky 

opens one eye at a time ; 

but it sees in a wink 

2(5 



BLOOD OF THINGS 27 

more than your two in their eternity. 

Is his other eye closed? — 

yes, but it sees 

what even the owls cannot see : 

Chinese parasols 

spread out ere mid-day ! 

If you had an open eye 

and a closed eye, 

an open which closes, 

a closed which opens, 

you would see 

all your twin eyes are blind to : 

born one after the other, 

they might see 

day and night, 

now and then, 

love and love, 

meet at last ! 

CAMELS 

I have water of my own 
to take me towards the horizon ! 
But there are oases wide away, 
and a beckoning image of camels ! 

I love myself, 
but I love them more — 
though they change to trees, 
though they change to trees! 



28 BLOOD OF THINGS 

Let the sand of Sahara spread my shroud, 
and the wisdom of Arabs sneer epitaph — 
" Camel love never agrees, 
camel love changes to trees ! " — 
I'll follow even the last mirage ! 

WORMS 

I was once as free as you, 
I was once as young as you; 
sand to me, a sweet pure food, 
life to me, one oozy slime; 
for I was once as long as you, 
longer far than most of you : 
now I'm only two short worms — 
worms you couldn't call me. 

Living two lives, never one, 

two small lives, each more than one, 

we so twain, a twain remain, 

twain of one and one of twain. 

Treacherous day, a sunny day, 

sunniest day that ever I knew, 

a thing crawled near, cut me in two, 

I that once was long like you. 

ROBINS 

He did the best he could. 
With what he was. 
Towards love that came. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 29 



Now, 

this not-yet-old young man 

pecks at love, 

eyeing it, 

touching it, 

dropping it, 

eyeing it, 

like a wary robin 

with a wriggling worm. 

DUCKLINGS 

Oh wise-eyed duck, 

waddling like an empress, 

tell me: 

Would you be more happy 

or less happy 

or not at all happy 

if you had 

twelve ducklings, 

or ten ducklings, 

instead of eleven duckhngs, 

quacking you dumb? 

ROACHES 

You, sir, 

you they call a man : 

you blowsmut against her? 

Ordinarily, 

I'm such a shameless softie. 



30 BLOOD OF THINGS 

my shoe-leather squirms squashing a roach ; 

but I'd enjoy, 

though it choke me with creeps 

and stain me with blood 

(if such have blood to bleed) : 

you, sir, 

I'd enjoy castrating. 

PEIMEE 

Why does the man flay the horse ? 

If he is late again, 

the boss will discharge him. 

Why does the boss flay the man? 
If trade won't improve, 
his wife will be grumpy. 

Why does the wife flay the boss? 
If she wears that hat much longer, 
the neighbors will sneer. 

See the man flay the horse ! 

HEN-BEING 

Being cooped in a crate, 

cooped in a crate, 

as one is cooped in crates 

on West South Water Street 

of the filthy, stinking Chicago River — 



BLOOD OF THINGS 31 

being cooped in a crate 

with more hens than a crate can hold, 

is not an existence, 

even for hens, 

but it gives one a sense of safety, 

monotony, warmth and interest 

I don't deplore. 

What I deplore 

is this being yanked by the neck, 

yanked by the neck, 

yanked by the neck, 

and being flung, 

crammed and damned 

by a common, filthy, stinking 

West South Water Street poultryman 

of the filthy, stinking Chicago River, 

from one crate to another, 

one crate to another, 

one crate to another. 

It's enough to make 

an old hen squawk, 

and I'm an old hen, if you please, 

a roosterless, eggless, chickenless hen! 

There's ever the hope in a hen like me 

that the next crate 

will be one's last, 

so that this being slammed 

from one crate to another, 

one crate to another. 



32 BLOOD OF THINGS 

one crate to another, 

will reach a cadence. 

I'm an old hen, if you please, 

a roosterless, eggless, chickenless, 

and I can endure 

filthy, stinking West South Water Street 

of the filthy, stinking Chicago River 

of the filthy, stinking Loop of Chicago, Illinois, 

but wring my neck ere my time 

if I don't squawk truth for all hens 

when I aflSrm that this 

one crate to another, 

one crate to another, 

one crate to another, 

is no hop forward 

but a hop backward from 

being cooped in a crate, 

cooped in a crate. 

Being cooped in a crate, 

a hen might find something to scratch, 

though it's only one's neighbor, 

and one is sans claws, 

sans even a feather, 

to scratch her with ! 

Oh, Poultry Man, 

you are truly 

the God of hens ! 



BLOOB OF THINGS 8B 



GEOMETRY 

Never a mouse 

chases ever a tail, 

never a mouse ever sees 

that always a cat 

catches always a mouse, 

cats being kittens 

who once chased their tails ; 

Toss a pebble 

into a stream, 

never a circle 

catches a circle ; 

shoot a dawn-ball 

into the sky, 

never a moonbeam 

catches a sun; 

drop the same thought 

on the floor, 

only a kitten 

catches a tail, 

the tail being straight, 

the kitten a circle : 

Yet never a mouse 

chases ever a tail, 

never a mouse ever sees 

that always some death 

catches always his mouse, 



34. BLOOD OF THINGS 

deaths being kittens 

who once chased their tails. 

RHYMES 

We birds — 

we hop — 

and then peck and coo — 
humans keep their feet on the ground ! 

We bulls and cows — 

we lick — 

and then lap and moo — 
humans keep their tongues in their cheeks ! 

Pooh — 

but they 

have still much to learn 

about loosening ! 



ARIAS AND ARIETTES 

SERENATA 

Your brain is a garret 

scurrying with gray mice 

(mice that were white ere dust touched them gray) 

seeking the cheese 

you removed from your cupboard. 

(I am wrong, as usual.) 

Your brain is a tower 

clamoring with birds 

(such a whirring of wings, the color is blurred) 

mocking the discordant choral 

you used to try on your clavier. 

(I am wrong, as usual.) 

Your brain is a wintry wood on a hill 

looking afar in the solitude 

and hearkening the song 

(is it snow or a breeze?) 

the vast silence 

essays with numbed breathing. 

(I am wrong, as usual.) 

Your brain is a balcony — 

isn't it a balcony 

waiting for hands below 

to bring their crooked veins into tune? 

35 



36 BLOOD OF THINGS 

And I the troubadour 

who can twang you back to the garden? 

(Or am I wrong, as usual?) 

VALSE 

Softly — 

yes, that is her patter in the hall; 

she has returned. 

Eagerly — 

yes, that is her form in the door ; 

she is here. 

Madly — 

yes, these are her arms ; 

this mouth is hers. 

Tenderly — 

yes, these are her eyes ; 

her eyes are these. 

She loves me ; she loves me still — 
and a little more ! 



GEASSES 



Who 

would decry 
instruments — 
when grasses, 



BLOOD OF THINGS S7 



ever so fragile, 

provide strings 

stout enough for 

insect moods 

to glide up and down 

in glissandos 

of toes along wires 

or finger-tips on zithers — 

though 

the mere sounds 

be theirs, not ours — 

theirs, not ours, 

the first inspiration — 

discord 

without resolution — 
who 

would decry 
being loved, 

when even such tinkling 
comes of the loving? 

TIGER-LILY 

To have reached 
the ultimate top 
of the stalk, 
single, tall, fragile ; 
to hang like a bell, 
through sheer weight 
of oneself. 



38 BLOOD OF THINGS 

rather than pride of 

it being the top, 

no higher to go, 

rather than modesty 

of it being 

only a stalk, 

one among myriads ; 

to have one's six petals, 

refusing the straight 

for the curve, 

dipping mere pin-pricks 

around the horizon ; 

to have six tongues, 

which, however the mood 

of the wind may blow, 

refuse to clap into sound ; 

and to keep, withal, 

one's finest marvel, 

one's passionate specks, 

invisible : 

tiger-lily, 

if I bow, 

it is not 

in imitation ; 

it is 

in recognition 

of true being. 



BLOOD OF THINGS S9 

HARVEST DIRGE 

Why do you hearken so, ears of corn? 
Wheat, you beckon your yellow to me? 

CoTrWy sir, s7ie*s commg, sir. 
Come, sir, she's come. 

Why do you go away, cloud, like a hearse? 
Remove your gold spectacles, stream, and weep? 

Come, sir, she's gomg, sir. 
Come, sir, she's gone. 

ROUNDEIiAY 

The rain comes, 
the worm comes, 
the foot comes — 

and thus it goes, 

and thus it goes — 
The sun comes, 
the rose comes, 
the hand comes — 

and thus it goes, 

and thus it goes — 
Rose to worm, 
hand to foot, 
five feet apart — 

and thus it goes, 

and thus it goes — 



40 BLOOD OF THINGS 

The wind breathes, 
the two return, 
dust, to the sky — 

and thus it goes, 

and thus it goes — 

INDIAN SKY 

The old squaw 

is one 

with the old stone behind her. 

Both have squatted there — 

ask mesa, 

or mountain, how long? 

The bowl she holds — 

clay shawl of her art, 

clay ritual of her faith — 

is one 

with the thought of the past, 

and one with the now, 

though dim, a little old, strange. 

The earth holds her 

as she holds the bowl — 

ask kiva, 

or shrine, how much longer? 

No titan, 

no destroyer, 

no future thought, 

can part 

earth and this woman, 



BLOOD OF THINGS 41 

woman and bowl: 
the same shawl 
wraps them around. 

INDIAN SUMMER 

What was the tune you heard on the way 

that you must dawdle here, 

cut a reed like any truant, 

cut crooked holes in the reed, 

and dabble with burbling phrases 

which can only tremble and halt 

no matter how fearfully carefully you blow? 

The tune you heard didn't limp ? 

Time, you're a dunce. 

My word on it — 

you could have 

breathed echo when the air was near — 

now it's a wraith 

beyond even tiny embodiment? 

That amorphous haze, 

arpeggic fall of those leaves, 

glint of that bird — or was it a squirrel? — 

(had it been a rat it would have bitten you !) 

they ought to preach your heedlessness, 

no man can essay a pavanne 

with his phrases at variance — 

it is a pavanne, don't deny it! 

And why propose a pavanne 

when nobody dances pavannes, 



42 BLOOD OF THINGS 

and why ask a flute 

to mimic the tone of a spinet? 

Dear dunce — 

your tune begins to sound feminine — 

go away — 

the phrases are exquisite daggers — 

move along, move along : 

we have all sought the same lady twice ! 

AEABS 

Melancholy lieth dolorously ill, 

one heel full fatally smitten : 

Melancholy twitcheth and sigheth : 

" Must such as I, because of an itch, 

move from the cheery sloth of a couch, 

from watching my valorous nomad musings 

coming and passing like pilgrims en route 

from mooning philosophy on to the sun — 

must such as I, almost ready to follow them, 

legs follow musings like sheep follow bells — 

must such as I, because of a scratch 

imprinted by small, ignominious teeth 

of a small, black, common, eifeminate witch, 

surely not one of my bidding — jjiove? 

What way is this, God, to make a man move? " 

And his bed-fellow. 

Happiness, petrified, groaneth: 

" What way is this, God, to make a man stone? 



BLOOD OF THINGS 43 



MIRAGE 

Yonder hill 

lifts its blue mist, 

like a lady a fan, 

and lowers it, 

enticing you further. 

Can you enfold her? — 

suppose you do ? — 

and only the mist embrace you? — 

don't conclude the fan the lady ! 

Suppose you can't? — 

and the mist slap your face? — 

don't conclude the fan a fan, 

no lady behind it: 

yonder hill 

lifts its blue mist, 

like a lady a fan. 

PATCH 

I shall turn my yard into dahlias 

or better still, marigolds I 

I cannot endure 

the spectre of its baldness. 

I am old — 

nay worse, middle-aged! 

The very young girls 

no longer kiss me — 

with objection? 



44 BLOOD OF THINGS 

One of the brazen sect — 

does the devil send them back from the past ? — 

actually fondled my gnu's beard, 

and brushed my promontory with her cheek, 

to the tune of " pretty patch, pretty patch ! " 

I do not mind being loved — 

but I do care 

about playing specimen 

for a sensation 

a very young girl 

cannot have of a very young man ! 

To-morrow — 

nay, to-night — 

my seeding begins ! — 

Marigolds, dahlias, asters, daisies, weeds — 

any growth will do ! 

THRENODY 

I have been a snob to-day. 
Scourge me with a thousand thongs ! 
The crowds were atoms passing by. 
Plunge me into a vat of tar ! 
Love was dead all day. 

Tyrant I had a feast of self. 
Hang me from the city gallows ! 
His harem, pride and vanity. 
Throw my body to Doodle Dandy ! 
Love was dead all day. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 45 



Let him tear my I from me. 

Let him stick it on a pike. 

Let him dance through every street. 

For all to jeer, for all to damn. 

Love was dead all day. 

Let him fling the selfish thing 
into the public pool of shame. 
And raise a stone that all may read, 
those that live and those to come : 
" Love was dead all day." 

SUN-WATER 

Only yesterday — 

I used 

to carry 

my old winter bones 

through the streets — 

no sun 

to make the sap in them stir — 

no stream 

to make the sap in them start — 

and now that I'm here, 

sun up there, stream out there, 

sun out there, stream up there — 

I don't know 

what I want to say, 

even towards a vain 

little self -tickling song? 



46 BLOOD OF THINGS 

Very early spring: 
will you wait for me ? 

KEG 

What use is this stream ? — 

there isn't a keg anywhere 

for us to ride, 

like a pony, bareback — 

if we had a keg to ride, 

we wouldn't be tempted to beg anywhere — 

we couldn't, you know, on a keg in a stream 

and any time I'd beg of you — 

any time I did, and you'd think me too near 

you'd give the keg a kick — 

and I'd roll to the other side — 

what use is this stream ? 

THE HUDSON 

Great, broad stream: 

When I am brave, 

will you carry me along 

to your mother, the sea? — 

I've heard your mother, the sea, croon afar, 

" they were brave," 

as she cradles their bodies ; 

" they were brave," 

your child-echo crooning us here. 

I want my body to be firm, 

my face and eyes smooth ; 



BLOOD OF THINGS 47 



when I go there must be pride 

in my final thought ; equality 

with my eternal fellows ; shadow 

must greet shadows with clean hand; 

this is no time to take me, stream ; 

my death must be like theirs 1 

And she — 

she who stands behind me, 

wistful, glad and nodding me courage 

she, too, must be able to croon, 

'' he was brave." 



GOLDPIECES AND HEMSTITCHES 

BELIi 

I'm full of children this morning. 

I can feel them 

flying kites 

all the way up and down my veins. 

You never saw 

such black eyes, bloody noses, 

never heard such laughter. 

When school time comes, 

they'll go away — all except one. 

I hope that bell never rings. 

GOIJ)PIECES 

Lads, 

along the way of my time, 

I have stooped to many pieces, 

most of them bad. 

But you 

like their jangle 

as much as their jingle. 

Whether you earn them or not, 

the gold ones are for you. 

48 



BLOOD OF THINGS 49 



CEADLE 



The blue-eyed youngster 

and the fat old man 

play ball in me. 

And music — 

the one his penny flute, 

the other his bassoon. 

Their toleration is most indulgent — 

the one with grins, 

the other with a smile. 

When they are tired, 

they go to bed together, 

though their dreams — 

the one dreams of solemn white beards, 

the other of twinkling white legs. 

The woman, 

who looks in on them at times, 

careful not to disturb them, 

likes this time best. 

She rocks their cradle for them. 

CHINAMAN 

It is useless 

to contend 

with her superstitions. 

That she is lovely 

and loveth thee 

should quiet thee. 



50 



BLOOD OF THINGS 



When some dream of hers, 

not come true, 

masters her and masters thee, 

then is the night to cry, 

ah me, 

and seek thy bed. . . . 

Smile thy prayer 
like a Chinaman. 

• CEIES 

How can you ask 
milk of her heart 
when she only has 
milk in her breasts, 
milk of her breasts 
destined for a cry 
milk in her heart 
could never nourish? 

M0L1.USC 

Try your dagger elsewhere. 
You will only snap it here. 
Her heart is a mollusc. 
It never leaves her body. 

BOY-UGHTNING 

Oh, big Mister Cloud, 

send me a black cloak like yours? 



BLOOD OF THINGS 5i 

And a white plume and ruffles — 

And your dagger ! 

Maybe it's a tomahawk ! 

Please, Mister Cloud, 

I'd be the pride of the street like you, 

and scare everybody — even the bullies ! 

Mother wouldn't dare call me home 1 

And your blue wings, 

maybe you'd send me your wings ? 

So I could fly? 

Or sail! 

Mister Cloud, you're worse than a giant — 

how you growl, how you glare, how you shout — 

don't, don't go away, don't, don't go away ! 

You're crawling on your enemies ? 

On the palefaces? 

KiU 'em, kill 'em all, kill 'em, kill 'em all — 

but look out. Mister Cloud ! 

Snatch off your plume or they'll see you — 

hide your tomahawk ! 

Oo, Mister Cloud ! 

HEMSTITCHES 

Lasses, 

I could do better 

hemstitches for you 



52 BLOOD OF THINGS 

if I were a woman — 

preferably not your mother — 

but try to imagine 

that, though I loved such as you, 

older than you, 

I will never love you, 

and I will sew you something 

you can tuck away 

in the secret drawer of your dresser, 

you may take out 

if only to try on near your glass 

on such nights 

when you are lonesome, 

and no boy gives you a thought. 

POL.YSYLIJVBLE 

You would say — 

a girl of six 

is hardly old enough for philosophy — 

but you would say, wouldn't you? — 

a girl of six 

is old enough for pain, 

old enough to be sought 

by the fashionable lover, death, 

and his thumbs of strangulation ? — 

and you would say, had you seen her, wouldn't 

you? — 
a girl of six 



BLOOD OF THINGS 53 

is old enough for grammar 

and the adept use of monosyllables 

with the intrusion of an occasional polysyllable? — 

and you would have said, had you heard her, wouldn't 

you? — 
there was absolutely no theological intention 
in what she asked — 
a girl of six 

is hardly old enough for that, although 
her mother had told her, God had made her — 
" What did I do to God 
that He does this to me? 
Am I not His child — 
or did I misbehave? " 

CLOVER 

The next time you come, small sister, 

you and your shy smaller brother, 

you lifting your head and pointing your eyes 

(clover asleep in your arms), 

he too small to be braver than shy : 

If I'm not at home, if by that time, 

a day too old, I'm asleep in the ground, 

you try asking him 

those questions that wrinkled my head, 

(I never able to answer a question), 

and when your brother responds, 

if by that time he's taller than shy, 



54 BLOOD OF THINGS 

maybe I'll answer too, 

with the nod of a clover, 

if by that time I'm a clover awake? 



ROUGE 

You, lass 

(the one-not-quite-dear-enough), 

are such and such a person 

with such and such an appearance. 

What's that you say ? — 

there's no helping the latter? 

(Wait — you're younger, 

quicker than I — 

feminine, more feminine — 

wait and I'm with you — 

here's what I'm coming to!) 

Redden your heart, 

not your face — 

contract it, 

squeeze it, 

(you know what I mean?) 

hug yourself, 

want yourself, 

want yourself lovelier, 

(I don't mean as to face!) 

and it'll redden, have 

and give deeper thrills — 

^nd you, yes, you too — 



BLOOD OF THINGS 55 



(and so will your face !) 

and win wiser fellows 

and hold them much longer ! • 

what's that you say ? 

They, even they 

stay longer for faces ? — 

perhaps — yes — but — 

redden it anyhow, 

redden it all the more — - 

(what I mean is — 

what I'm coming to) 

your self-love — 

which, do you see, 

is what we all look into ? — 

will always 

give you 

something quite-dear-enough 

to ponder — 

and as to those chaps, 

(men are so dull !) 

let them look to their own ! 

Now, should one of them, 

even one of them — 

(blessed with instinct 

he got from his mother 

more than his father — 

that you may swear to !) 

should such a one 

come prying — 



56 BLOOD OF THINGS 

he and his self-love — 

with an idea 

(always the same at the last) 

to change your person to his — 

thinking he can do so — 

you change his to yours, 

if you can, 

and if you can't, 

there's no use anyhow — 

he's no good that way — 

if it must be that way — 

and it usually must 

(unless I'm dull too) — » 

so, send him home — 

give him a bone or a locket 

to gnaw at or finger — 

there's nourishment in memory — 

his pride will recover — 

do you see? 

What's that? — it's sad? — 

of course ! — everything is ! — 

(and so much the better, 

life so much richer!) 

for, whether you win him, 

or he win you, 

or you lose him, 

or he lose you, 

(and, do you see. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 57 



there's never the one nor the other?) 

of course it's sad — everything is — 

(what I mean is) 

that's not enough reason 

for sitting so glum — 

flowers don't do it ! . . , 

What I'm coming to 

(one moment more, 

hang it all !) — 

nobody'll ever get you — 

it'll always be you 

that chases you 

and catches you, 

if it can ! — 

so, hug yourself, 

want yourself, 

want yourself lovelier 

(here's what I mean, 

I suppose) 

for your own 

almost-dear-enough sake — 

and your face will do the rest — 

if it must — 

if you want it to — 

if you can't help but want it to — 

you, perhaps, with an eye 

on some bee of a chap 

you'd like to give 



58 BLOOD OF THINGS 

what you can of yourself — 

(of you — to him — for you ! — 

the sly boomerang, eh?) 

for you to be proud of — 

and him to be proud of — 

though, as I say — 

it's only himself that he's after — 

(you two and your two !) 

do you see? 

It's a muddle — I know — 

but don't droop your head — 

that's right ! — get up ! — fine ! — 

Now — try — your — glass I 

Eh? 

KATTDIDS 

Lass and lad, 

consider your friends and relations — 

this laughter of yours 

is unmoral — immoral really I 

On the grave of one's love, nobody 

sings a katydid duo, 

does a gargoyle dance, 

drops irresponsible flowers ! 

Not dead ? Yes, it is ! 

The one slinks this way, 

the other slinks that, 

when you're through pirouetting? 



BLOOD OF THINGS 59 



At least have it look like death — 

j oy is indecent, 

inconsiderate, unsociable — 

you'll never win stones in that fashion ! 



OLD PEOPLE 

ENDINGS 

Life, loving to listen 

to old folk 

arguing the comparative 

claims upon glory 

of the diseases they've had 

that he brought them — 

each one's resistance 

mightier than his rivals', 

and each one's pride 

gorgeously inflating the facts of a case 

and Death, just loving to reflect 

on the cool, healing kiss, 

a round period with which 

she'll seal their stories : 

these twain 

are almost like twins 

craving the same old tale 

be told in the same old way — 

these twain would be twins 

were it not for the preference, 

that Life 

likes his to end in adventure, 

while Death 

likes hers to end at home. 

60 



BLOOD OF THINGS 61 



PHAL.LIC 



Hail, steel 

spike of a river, 
bending and straightening, 
forcing and twisting, 

driving your way 
down the bowels of 

hills and mountains, 
bending them back on all sides, 
breaking them open, 
tearing up children, 

stones strewn everywhere I — 

Your soft, clear look with its 

stone-white thought — 
hail, crooked grandmother, 
humped on a boulder, 
eyeing your daughters, 
heedless of thought 
from heeding their reckless, 

stone-smooth, 
shell-tinted offspring — 
none old enough 
to think as you do — 
hail to your look as it lights 

still softer 
on the filthy (some would say) 

little boys 



62 BLOOD OF THINGS 

digging their way 

down the mud of its banks ! 

A WHILE 

Rain drops, 

passionately gregarious, 

passionately garrulous, 

as they come, 

driven like tears 

from Eden's trees, 

in fore-knowledge 

of house-tops 

where egos scatter — 

unless and until 

they touch ground-holes 

where egos stick 

and at least do some good — 

are the kin of 

blood drops, tongues 

and the words 

of old people, 

reminiscently gregarious, 

reminiscently garrulous — 

unless and until 

they have children. 

This is why 

I hearken the childless, 

and assume the role 

of repartee breezes : 



BLOOD OF THINGS 63 



juggling rain 
or juggling blood, 
breezes keep drops 
from falling — 
a while. 

MIDDUE-AGB 

She, 

like an old-time street organ 

which has lost its half-tones, 

or never had any, 

is frantically running the diatonic - 

whether to find those tones, 

or to save the loss of these she has, 

is not for me to know. 

The one for whom she plays 
is a wheezy accordeon 
whose one everlasting tonality 
lies in a foreign key. 

OLD MABEIAGE 

That old fool — 

as the men-folk sneer — 

trudging the hill — 

his mule-day over — 

is it because his back is bent — 

that he carries those dandelions — 

the easier to reach if you're bent ? — 



64 BLOOD OF THINGS 

or is it because — 

as the women-folk sigh — 

he has warmed-over whims — 

for that other old fool — 

at the top of the hill — 

is it the sunset beckons him to ? 

OLD BEGGAR HEELS 

The right of the heel 

of her right shoe and 

the left of the heel of her left 

are worn to the ground, 

so wabbly and low 

does she bend her knees, 

so long has she done it there. 

Give her a penny, 
and you will see. 
If you want to be sure, 
give her two. 

triangles: in memory of h. c. k. 

This is the last long tired day ; 
the omnipresence of dissolution, 
dwarfed to the circle of each eye. 

The dance of his breathing, 

quicker and louder than scraping of feet, 

ceases like sap in leaves that are still. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 65 

One eye says to another: 
This was a dance like staccato of steel 
in the hand of an invisible madman 
thrusting the past with the final deep twist. 

One eye says to another: 
His eyes brushed mine like dogs, 
which I must house and feed, 
lest I be henceforth alone. 

One eye says to another: 
I'm afraid to breathe in, 
for fear of breathing out; 
yet breathe out, one must, to breathe in. 

On€ eye says to another: 
But there's comfort in formulas, 
in the easy triangular round ; 
have his stone-lip lisp it again : 

Eyes breathe softly to eyes: 
May this entity, 
now a nonentity, 
not lose identity. 

Eyes embrace eyes . . . 
and dance his dirge . . . 
to their own minuets . . . 



66 BLOOD OF THINGS 



PROSE RHYTHMS, 1906 

A IX)VER TELLS 

It is a bit of a river that flows between two strips 
of land. Thousands of honeyless hives bury the 
strip on this, thousands the strip on that side — 
honeyless hives choked by honeyless, two-legged lives 
— but what of these? It is night. 

It is night, and a song, borne by a friendly wind, 
steals across the river, across from yonder side to 
this, across to me. It is not a song of night's ; it is 
not a song of Nature's ; it is not a song of the gods. 
It is . . . but stay I It is not for you. Your name 
is Profanation; you are of the honeyless two-legs 
that choke the honeyless hives that bury the earth . . . 

It is a bit of a river that flows between. It is 
night. A song steals across to me. And only the 
river 'twixt singer and me ! 

A POOR MAN TELLS 

Nature, like some harlot of the streets, was wear- 
ing her freshest rouge and her latest fashion's cos- 
tume. Behind the rouge and the costume, the old 
allurement watched and waited: the still tempting 
face, the still voluptuous body. It was poor I who 
chanced to pass that way, and stopped, though much 
against my will. And Nature whispered me some- 
thing: whispered me her price with her sighing, ca- 



BLOOD OF THINGS 67 

joling voice. I moved on a little, hesitated and 
stopped again. Yes, I would have dared, but I 
could not dare. I would have dared to approach, 
look into the ever tempting face, raise the garment 
and enjoy the ever voluptuous body. But I could 
not dare : Nature's price was too high for my soul's 
thin pocketbook. And I passed on, though much 
against my will. 

A MADMAN TELLS 

Mirrored in the depths of thy twin tarns of love- 
liness so tender, where, as elsewhere, spring laughs, 
summer roves, autumn dreams and winter sleeps; 
and where, as elsewhere, joy and passion and melan- 
choly and sorrow pass their lives, so constant and 
so pure, certain twin reflections have enshrined them- 
selves in holy, beatific solitude. Ripples come, dis- 
port themselves, chase one another and disappear, 
and the tarns frown or smile as is their mood. The 
wind, jealous, of an avaricious temper, and weary of 
the love of flowers and butterflies, deserts his south- 
ern clime to woo these brides with his song, so melo- 
dious, so haunting, so compelling. But the tarns 
frown or smile as is their mood. The feathered chil- 
dren of the air fly from afar and, in the joy of the 
moment, serenade the consecrated spot with their 
poignant outpouring of an idolatrous invocation. 
But the tarns frown or smile as is their mood. Not- 
withstanding that the ripples come and disport them- 



68 BLOOD OF THINGS 

selves, that the wind steals hither to woo, that the 
children of the air gather for their invocation, the 
twin reflections lament not, neither do they sorrow. 
For the ripples will go and the wind will go and the 
air folks will go, hence, far away, to unknown climes, 
to return again, but only to go, always to go. 
Therefore, the twin reflections are happy, immortally 
happy, whether spring laugh or summer rove or au- 
tumn dream or winter sleep, for, in the depths of the 
tarns they have enshrined themselves in holy, beati- 
fic solitude, living, sleeping and dreaming an ever- 
lasting elysium of elysian transcendentalism. Bliss- 
ful, ah, blissful I ! 

A DEAD MAN TELLS 

Indifferently, and yet, with an unbiased sort of 
half sportiveness, half seriousness, the rain beats 
down on my grave. The wind comes driving along 
from his home in the north-east, causing the trees to 
sing an unearthly air, now a dirge and now a scherzo. 
Down here, inside this lovely ebony casket that was, 
the worms, partly in joy and partly in regret, help 
themselves to that which is left of me to be digni- 
fied with the name, Body, at the same time giving me 
the delightful assurance that my skeleton days and 
those days when I am to romp with companion dust 
atoms are not so far hence. What an inestimable 
pleasure it is for me to reflect, that when Nature, 
assisted by these gentle myrmidons of hers, shall have 



BLOOD OF THINGS 69 

realized her little business of the decomposition of my 
body, she will have succeeded with an even closer 
artistic completeness than Life and his myrmidons in 
their decomposition of that part of me which I once 
tried to dignify with the name, Soul ! 



DOROTHY 



HER EYES 



Her eyes hold black whips — 

dart of a whip 

lashing, nay, flicking, 

nay, merely caressing 

the hide of a heart — 
and a broncho tears through canyons 

walls reverberating, 

sluggish streams 

shaken to rapids and torrents, 

storm destroying 

silence and solitude! 
Her eyes throw black lariats — 

one for his head, 

one for his heels — 
and the beast lies vanquished — 

walls still, 

streams still — 

except for a tarn, 

or is it a pool, 

or is it a whirlpool 

twitching with memory ? 



70 



BLOOD OF THINGS 71 

HEE HAIR 



Her hair 
is a tent 

held down by two pegs — 

ears, very likely — 
where two gypsies — 

lips, dull folk call them — 
read your soul away: 
one promising something, 
the other stealing it. 

If the pegs would let go — 

why is it they're hidden? — 
and the tent 

blow away — drop away — 
like a wig — or a nest — 

maybe 
you'd escape 
paying coin 
to gypsies — 

maybe — 

HER HANDS 

Blue veins 

of morning glories — 
blue veins 

of clouds — 
blue veins 

bring deep-toned silence 

after a storm. 



72 BLOOD OF THINGS 

White horns 

of morning glories — 
white flutes 

of clouds — 
sextettes hold silence fast, 

cup it for aye. 
Could I 

blow morning glories — 
could I 

lip clouds — 
I'd sound the silence 

her hands bring to me. 
Had I 

the yester sun — 
had I 

the morrow's — 
brush them like cymbals, 

I'd then sound the noise. 



HKR BODY 



Her body gleams 

like an altar candle — 

white in the dark — 

and modulates 

to voluptuous bronze — 

bronze of a sea — 

under the flame. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 78 



CUkT 

I wish 

there were thirteen 

gods in the sky, 

even twelve might achieve it: 

Or even 
one god 
in me: 

• 
Alone, 

I can't shape 
an image of her. 

OVALS 

I find my faith 

in two oval rooms 

an inch apart: 

uncertain in the one, 

I have only to glance at the other ! 

ALCHEMY 

Not even rain 

could make her lovelier — 

and I am no god. 

OTHEES 

There is too 
the love of her 



74. BLOOD OF THINGS 

through others' 
love of her. 

There is too 
the love of her 
through others' 
love of her 
love of me. 

There is even 
the love of her 
though others' 
love of her 
be only 
love of my 
love of her. 

THREE 

I and my 

lovely lady 

sit down 

where we can see each other 

and chat about 

the 

lovely lady 

I and my 

lovely lady 

love. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 75 



WESTMINSTER 



The niche 

cut for her 

by chance and her and me 

might be deeper 

if chance and she and I 

had been some other 

chance and she and I. 

But there it is ! 

AGATE 

Memories take the impress of shadows 
one breathes on the face of a stream : 
black agate the shadow she leaves. 

ILLUSIONS 

This tree, 

whose top flirted with the sky, 

whose branches dared the uttermost east and west, 

whose roots penetrated China, 

whose leaves were elves — 

My companion gone, 
it is less than a shrub. 

JADE 



Towards the green and age 
of Chinese jade. 



76 BLOOD OF THINGS 

the moods and thoughts 

of the eyes and leaves 

of the cat and tree 

in the tiny dose 

of my her for me 
lift and lower: 
lower, then lift 
towards my me for her, 
the age and green 
of the Chinese love 
I feel for her, 
and try to carve 
and pray to see 
in this jade for her. 

iMAea 
Showing her immortal — 
it's mine to do — 
but I can't. 
Shaping her — 
just as she is — 
a thing 

to turn a glance 
to an eternity — 
mood shaping form — 
imperishable — 
it's there — 
I can see it — 
but I can't say it. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 77 



There's no secret about it — 

she tells it 

every breathing, breathless moment — 

I can hear it — 

but I can't say it. 

What can my mere 
body and scrivening 
leave you, if 
it doesn't leave you her? 

If I could transcribe 

one infinitesimal phase 

of the trillion-starred endowment 

which comes tumbling 

out of simply trying to look at her, 

or out of catching a glance, 

slyly pointed, 

trying to look at me, 

stirring a trillion-starred emotion, 

vibrating like a bell 

across endless tides of endless seas — 

I'd do it — 

but I can't. 

I love her so much, 

I can't do anything else. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 

SCEAP 

I'm a scrap of paper — 

nothing to look at or ponder, they think, 

who see but themselves wherever they crawl ! 

To urchin and artist, 

ragpicker, seer — 

I'm shiny, crinkly, shapely, white! 

Out come their heads, like turtles', they do ! 

PUMP 

I'm not the scullery-scrub of the street! 

Let wind, rain and sun rinse and shine it ! 

I'm a low round steady back 

for a child 

who hasn't reached boyhood 

to learn leap-frogging — 

and for a boy 

who's reached manhood — 

not to forget ! 

PUDDI^ 

If your feather's gone crooked in the wind, try me; 
I'm the mirror, lass, you couldn't take along ! 

78 



BLOOD OF THINGS 79 

If the city's made you lose, lad, your lake in the 

woods : 
I'm the pool — wade in ! — you didn't leave behind ! 
If your legs have softened muscles from living in a 

house : 
take a jump across my breast — it's water you need 

now! 
If you've stumbled on the habit of staring at the 

ground : 
pay me the fare of a glance, and I'll ride you to the 

sky! 

SHOW-CASE 

Twenty-four white collars 

will find twenty-four callers : 

if he lives well, size sixteen, 

thin, old or vain, size twelve : 

bad, a noose were fitter, dead, a wreath, 

sixteen or twelve quite the same : 

so, for the temporal present, come, 

twenty-four callers, and find 

twenty-four white collars ! 

CIGAR-INDIAN 

My tomahawk — 

will it descend — strike cleave a white skull? 

No — I am obsolete — 

a servile symbol 

of the art of my ancestors fallen a trade — 

inside, the symbol of conquest — 



80 BLOOD OF THINGS 

a shopkeeper — this one a German ! 

Behold in me, 

the defeat of the past — 

sculptured dissolution ; 

and the new scarecrow — 

man turned to wood ! 

May the next who tomahawks peace - — 

take my place ! 

CIGAR-BUTT 

I'm the shabby relic of yestereve — 
spent it with a lady and a gentleman — 
lady cost him thirteen dollars, fourteen agonies — 
I but fifteen cents t 

Yet I who helped him with his revery — 
I who helped him decide to marry her — 
I who helped him better than stammer the pro- 
posal — 
helped him reform, give up painting, start in busi- 
ness, start a home — 
home, children, furniture, trappings and all, 
all a consequential adjunct to the realm — 
I who helped him be what he is — 
me he threw in the gutter — 
me, at least, the tomb of what he was I 

LETTEE-BOX 

Lift your hand to mine — 

a little higher — don't be timid — 



BLOOD OF THINGS 81 

and to-morrow — or Thursday, the latest — 

another — smaller than yours — 

will approach my green brother's — 

(Toledo, did you say?) 

and the next day — or Saturday, the latest — 

still another — my gray brother's — 

will return your boomerang! 

DUST 

We are molecules — 

whose fate it is to quarrel — 

who knows why? 

It isn't when we're underfoot — 

it's when we're in the air — 

two of us after one air-hole! 

We don't do it — 

we like being still — 

it's the wind does it! 

Do lovers know why? 

PARK-BENCH 

I'm long and green and cool 
like the tree that I came from. 
They set me here, 
the ones who are long on green, 
to keep cool the ones who aren't. 
And to render back to God, 
through me if they can, 



82 BLOOD OF THINGS 

what they have stolen 

of the freedom of things! 

WEIGHING-MACHINE 

There's the one who wheedles — 

" lift your pointer three pounds higher " — 

and the other who wheedles — 

" drop it three pounds lower " — 

always meeting in the sorry duet — 

" so I find favor with him 1 " 

I say to them both, to them all — 

weight is the substance of earthly endeavor, 

and if I were a man, 

science would choose me the bigger, 

since decomposition asserts, 

the nearer to lean, the nearer to death, 

and self-preservation, 

the nearer to stout, the nearer to life — 

but as I'm a weighing-machine, 

set here to adjudicate avoirdupois, 

wisdom would choose me the smaller : 

she gives me lighter work to do — 

and some day, some stout one will kill me! 



DUNG 



I have my uses too : 
I relieve satiety: 
I satisfy hunger: 
horse and fly ! 



BLOOD OF THINGS 83 

And my country cousin: 

cattle and grain ! 

If we didn't: 

where would man be? 

ELECTRIC SIGN 

I call your attention to me — 

I am America! 

I come in the dark — 

I burn and blaze the dark away 1 

I am electricity — 

I set fire to the street, 

like lightning all heaven! 

Whether you want to or whether you don't, 

you've got to see me — 

the biggest crowd in the world comes to me — 

richest and poorest — j oiliest brotherhood — 

crowds jostle crowds for me — 

I am Broadway ! 

Whether you need it or whether you don't, 

3^ou've got to buy what I sell — 

I sell the products of this, my land, 

as multiform, numerous and skillfully contrived 

as the tiniest particles 

of this, my earth and mountains, 

of this, my lakes and rivers, 

of this, my stars and sky ! 

My neighbor there — he's selling the same — 

it's the best on the globe — after mine ! 



84 BLOOD OF THINGS 

We're competitors in the main artery 

of strife which gives life to the body 

and perpetual ore to the soul! 

I was bom in America — 

I was made in America — 

and I'U go to the scrap-heap of America — 

to make room for some greater American! 

Do I brag? — 

sensitive, cultured, reticent foreigner, 

why shouldn't I ? — 

I'm the ego of the new world — 

Africa — Asia — Europe — 

the old world's dead — I'm the new ! 

I call your attention to me — 

I come in the dark — 

skeptical foreigner, mark you this boast — 

yesterday's history, prepare a new page: 

To-morrow, you'll see me in Europe! 

BITS 

I found these bits 

while going along 

from Fourteenth Street to Forty-second. 

How could those fellows ask a fellow going along 

policeman, vender, truck driver, 

motorman, and even the snobbish chauffeur — 

how could they bawl out that symphony, 

cacophonous and contrapuntal — 

" where in Hell are you going? " — 



BLOOD OF THINGS 85 

at a fellow with nothing but a pencil and a pad? 
You have to be blind, hard of hearing, 
to see what street things do ! 
You have to change to a thing, 
ere things can speak to you! 



COINS 

I. COPPER 

Some bodies chase pennies, 

and live penny lives, 

by hoarding three pennies, 

in fear of just two; 

then hoarding two pennies, 

in fear of just one; 

then hoarding one penny, 

in fear of the zero, 

as round in its emptiness, 

perfectly round, 

as bodies all are 

which chase pennies. 

II. SILVER 

Whether winds chase the clouds, 
or clouds chase the winds; 
whether shadows the grasses, 
or grasses the shadows; 
which part of the circle 



86 BLOOD OF THINGS 

starts chasing the rest's 

unimportant ; important 

that bodies chase bodies 

with undulating, 

mystic caresses 

of unseen wings: 

wings brushing wings. 

III. GOLD 

Something flipped somebody 
into the air, and he fell, 
head over tail over head over tail, 
a moth blind with stars, 
clutching light, clutching dark : 

here — where 

hand of man, feet of bug: 
fail not to turn him, if 
you would have both of him, 
undermost, equal to, if not 
as cleanly as uppermost: 

see ? 



THE ROUND OF A FIVE AND TEN CENT 
STORE 

THINGS 

We five and ten cent things are small — 

but — 
neglect of a button may lose you your job, 
hook and eye crooked, her social prestige: 
angles of pins web her hair, luring you, 
a prince in her thought with a pin in your tie: 
unseen safeties smooth her bodice round her breast, 
unseen stitches, your jacket round your chest: 
we five and ten cent things are small — 

but — 
a but can grow bigger than a tragedy, sir ! 
Here*s seed for your bird, sir — come, make 

it svng! 

RING 

Now — the fourth finger tip 
of her left hand — 
that's the lip to her heart — 
the digit itself, sir, the artery — 
so — if you touch the tip with your tip — 
index tip of your right — 
then — if her heart likes it — 

87 



88 BLOOD OF THINGS 

it'll tell the digit, 

which'll tell the tip, 

which'll tell your lip — 

whether to buy me! 

Or — better still — 

take her tip between index and thumb — 

like a telegrapher — 

you can never be sure of a method with woman! 

Then — oh ! — 

is this the lady ? — 

gee, she's nice ! — 

why'd you not say you knew how? — 

bashful ? — I know ! — 

I hope ni do? — ah! 

That'll cost you a nickel^ sir — thank you! 

HATCHET VERSUS HAMMER 

The past needs chopping away: 

buy a " Washington " hatchet — that's me ! 

The present needs knocking fast : 

don't buy a " King " hammer — that's him ! 

Use my edge for the one, 

my back for the other : 

one man's job is a better man's job ! 

There's chopping to do eoery day, sir! 

PAPER ROSES 

We're stronger than Nature's roses — 



BLOOD OF THINGS 89 

grew from the tendrils of women — 

each woman's ten tendrils — 

for the joj of other women — 

east side women — 

and the gift of east side men — 

east side pocketbooks! 

Women know women — 

make roses which last! 

They^ll cost you a dime, sir — thank you! 

THIMBLE 

I'm intended 

for her third finger tip — 

lest a needle prick it — 

and for the tips of her lashes — 

should a word-needle, them! 

Lip salve'll help the hurt if you do, sir! 

COFFEE-MILL 

Like Mother Dew 

bent over her soil — 

grind away merrily — 

make the morning smell brown — 

till the whole room itself chum round! 

Coffee boils deeper than roses, sir! 



DISHES 



A lot of us together — 
we do look prosperous - 



90 BLOOD OF THINGS 

make a funny clatter — 

our curves best for mouths — 

our flats load whole muttons — 

our sides walls for gravy ! 

Gravy — there's the danger — 

pray God, don't bring her 

a lot of us together — 

a dish pan's a grave — 

and dish water's gravy 

that'll foul the meat of your love — 

and stick to the remains like a shroud 1 

Dont let those glasses squeeze, sir — thei/We fragile! 

MOUSE-TRAP 

You two need a trap with four holes : 

one to catch her illusions: 

one to catch yours : 

one to catch your self-love : 

one to catch hers: 

only then will one cheese last you two! 

Warram^ted to 'Mil as soon as they nibble, sir! 

AISLES 

Your eyes have spied us: 

your feet have come and gone ! 

Your hands have reached across us: 

salesgirls reached you theirs! 

Ribbons you bought tied her hat to her head : 

we're more than ribbons that tie her to you ! 



BLOOD OF THINGS 91 

Nighttime, it^s we that can't close our eyes : 
daytime, it's we that pray you'll return ! 
Aigrettes? — not here, sir! — they'd fly away! 

NICKELS AND DIMES 

You helped us build our skyscraper! 

We've helped you build yours ! 

May God tip the spire! 

Costs a prayer extra, sir — donH mention it! 

ROUND 

A mere poet 

is penniless. 

Mightn't he try 

a round poem 

to bind her? 

That'll bring her liberty, sir! 



PHYSIOLOGY 

LEAVES 

We were green, green ? — 
till they wrung out our 
blood, the green sap! 
Now we are white — 
white as white can be to the eye, 
black as white can be to the thought ! 
Lines, thin lines are our veins — 
most of them, horizontal parallels, 
two of them, vertical parallels ! — 
horizontals blue, verticals pink, 
mocking the texture of man-veins ! — 
the pink, erect as two columns, 
mocking the stability of civilization! 

He holds us down with one hand 
and with the other, gripping a feather, 
spatters us with hieroglyphs ! — 
not like an aboriginal, 

red-burning African, red-burning Eskimo ! — 
but like any white civilian 
with his hieroglyphs, hieroglyphs, 
some down one column, some down the other, 

92 



BLOOD OF THINGS 9S 

more down one column, more down the other — 

hating, detesting, knifing each other 

as only a debit and credit can hate ! 

We were green ! — 

we used to sing 

to the wand of the wind! 

EYES 

We are his eyes. 

We do not see. 

We do not see grain, 

we see people; 

we do not see people, 

we see people gathering grain; 

we do not see people gathering grain, 

we see people loading freight cars ; 

we do not see people loading freight cars, 

we see freight cars en route ; 

we do not see cars, 

we see endless eels, 

eels of white tape; 

we do not see tape, 

we see figures ; 

we do not see figures — 

gold is what we see. 

We are his eyes. 

We tell him, 

buy wheat at par ! 



94 BLOOD OF THINGS 

STOMACH 

I told him — 

that even in love — 

that thought for the without — 

one must preserve oneself. 

I told him — 

a little love is admissible — 

all-love suicidal. 

I told him — 

even if one love a little, 

one must preserve oneself. 

I told him — 

even in fair play — 

the love phrase of commerce, 

which calls for a recognition of the balance 

between two factors or people — 

one must preserve oneself. 

It's fine to sa}^, but not fair, — 

not fair to oneself — 

'' My dear sir, I'd like to offer you more than you 

ask "— 
that's an instance of loving, 
of a thought for the without — 
not an instance of living, 
of the thought for the within — 
as I told him. 

He said, — but that was years ago — 
" Mustn't I save my soul.'^ " — 



BLOOD OF THINGS 95 

and I said, — and that was instantaneously — 

" Your body's your soul — 

and even if it isn't — 

don't you need a body to preserve your soul? " 

I'm proud of my pupil. 

I told him — 

and he was only a stripling. 

I haven't had to tell him since. 

HEART 

I was his heart. . . . 

I felt like a woman once. 

I used to stand at the well, 

pumping blood, lifting blood, 

blood as clean as water, 

and drop it into his pore-cups, 

millions of clean pore-cups. . . . 

Wriggling things slid into the well. 

Things his stomach vomited. 

That hag of the devil, his stomach. . . . 

They had to live. 

Even I will say, even they must live. 

So they devoured my blood. 

Smuttied it, soaked it in slime. 

And left ofFal. . . . 

I am his heart. . . . 

I pump offal, lift offal. 

Offal is what I give. 

Offal the pore-cups receive. . . . 



96 BLOOD OF THINGS 

I used to sing at my labors. 
I don't sing now. 
I whisper a curse. . . . 
I am his hate. . . . 

BRAINS 

We are weary. . . . 

We exist in the back of his head. 

We are the worms squirming there. 

Kick open some earth and you'll see us. 

We are his machinery. 

Look at machines and you'll see us. 

Their veins twist like ours. . . . 

He keeps us slaving. 

Day-time, over-time, dreaming-time. 

He, a slave, keeps us slaving. . . . 

There's a god in his middle. 

He's worm to that god. 

Poke a worm's middle, you'll see him. . . 

We want to rest. 

To lie out flat. 

We want him to die. ... 

Though earth worms go on. 

Do outside what we did inside. 

Brother worms wearier. . . . 

Wearier than we are. . . . 



CITY DANDELIONS 



JASMINE WAY 



I hear it was a girl? 

Why, they were saying it was a girl? 

Isn't that nice and what are you calling him? 

I'd an uncle by that name — it's so pretty — when's 

the christening? 
I must wear my new white frock — Jonathan — 

they'll call him Johnny — have you tried our 

new green grocer? 
So much cheaper than old Fleischmann — yours a 

boy, the Jones' a girl — they'll be sweethearts 

when they're bigger? 
Weil, I never — what with Mary Hatfield soon, and 

the Spindles to be married, Jasmine Way is 

certainly growing — 
Good day to you, mam! 

LANES 

Do you wish to hear songs, 

silent songs, 

gone, 

to come, 

or never to come, 

no lane of fallen leaves, 

97 



98 BLOOD OF THINGS 

however red or brown or gold, 

however soft to the tread, 

is as caressing 

as the hard gray flagstone 

of a city street. 

Look at one and hear. 

CITY DANDEUONS 

Jane Street 

is ever gloomy towards evening, 
Horatio and Charles, 
Milligan and Gay : 

A long, spectral, mysterious man 

comes with his wand 

and touches the lamps — 

this one, 

that one, 

the next, 

the next — 

and they blossom ! 

Jane Street 

smiles and is cheery at dawn, 
Horatio and Charles, 
Milligan and Gay: 

The man comes again — 
and this one. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 99 

that one, 
the next, 
the next — 
blow away ! 

TESTAMENTS 

They wait under the same sky — 

along the same level — 

throughout the same rain — 

and — 

honest humans crawl to both — 

but — 

there is a difference 

wider than a city block 

between the House of Moses 

on Second Avenue 

and the Chapel of the Immaculate Virgin 

on Third. 

MANUFACTURE 

The great house is black. 

Years ago, it was red — 

made of red bricks, 

made by red men. 

The city, 

a dream of white men turned to soot, 

charcoaled it — don't blame the sun. 

Cut into the huge wall — 

here, there, here, there — 

are windows 



100 BLOOD OF THINGS 

as regular as shiny playing cards. 

Windows are 

made of glass, 

and as glass is transparent, 

the mere effort of a glance may see 

a stiff, perpetual, 

right, left, right, left, 

up, down, up, down, 

arms, heads, arms, heads. 

Are these, jokers, come to life? — 

or mannikins, 

made to jump on a string between sticks 

by the mere effort of squeezing, relaxing? 

landowner 
(to b. k.) 

Because of his ownership 

of a portion of the universe 

so minute that not even Jehovah, 

in his most omniscient mood, 

could locate it; 

because of his dominion 

for a duration of the infinite 

80 infinitesimal that a 

breath in, breath out 

on the part of The Same 

divides its be and be-not; 

because of this empire of his 

over a longitude and latitude 



BLOOD OF THINGS 101 



scarce the size or the strength 

of a pinchlet of dynamite — 

that blessed microbe 

wears a silk hat 

on Sundays — 

while others, less blessed than he, 

dig up his potatoes, 

dig down their own graves — 

with the hope that their Mondays 

may grow to such Sundays. 

ROMAN HUNGER 
(to L. R.) 

A truer harbinger 

of the dawn of a day's labors 

than any cock crow, 

a truer signal 

for the start of a race 

than whip, spur or pistol — 

the lady of the mansion 

blows her nose 

with a free and 

stentorian magnificence — 

a forest horn call 

for servants and maids 

to come scurrying 

from bed-room holes 

in garrets and cellars — 

a solemn command for 



102 BLOOD OF THINGS 

the eggs to start popping, 
the bacon to sizzling, 
the coifee to simmering — 

for, 
be it known that, 
on this particular day 
(each day being particular), 
the lady suffers 
an unusually cosmic appetite — 

and, 
that the sound may shatter 
unruly silence and penetrate walls, 
she employs no kerchief, 
but seizes her bedsheet — 
in which be it known 
to ears that stay skeptical, 

though 
the thunder seizes 
black clouds to 
blow his nose, 
the crash is less 
terrifying to trees 
than the call to 
her slaves when 
their lady blows hers. 



HEEEDITY 



The old man 

in the drawing-room oil 



BLOOD OF THINGS 103 

invented the harrow, 
or the rake, 
or the hoe, 
or something. 
I didn't learn 
whether she 
is his daughter, 
or granddaughter, 
his niece, grandniece, 
or what. 

But after seeing 

the blue and white awning 

playing tunnel from the curb to her front door, 

and that furniture, 

those rugs, 

those paintings, 

that statuary, 

the marble cupids in the gardens, 

and then the puppets who compose her society — 

I longed 

that some other 

had invented the harrow, 

or the rake, 

or the hoe, 

or something — 

or that the high forehead 

in the drawing-room oil 

had been a mere huckster 



104 BLOOD OF THINGS 

of shoe laces, 
or rhubarb, 
or whisk brooms, 
or something. 

THAT IS 

If I weren't what I am — 

if I hadn't been bom what I was — 

I wouldn't be what I am — 

that is — 
I'd have a decent j ob down-town — 
with a stipend of respectable proportions — 
I'd have a Sunday suit as well as a week-day — 
I wouldn't be looking so shabby — 
and my wife wouldn't eye me so — 
I feel like a roach when she eyes me so — 

that is — 
if she weren't what she is — 
if she hadn't been bom what she was — 
she wouldn't be what she is — 

she wouldn't have a Sunday as well as a week-day — 
and I wouldn't eye her so — 
she turns like a thief when I eye her so — 

that is — 
if my mother and father had 
had more discrimination in their choice of each 

other — 
if her mother and father had 



BLOOD OF THINGS 105 

had more discrimination in their choice of each 
other — 

no, that is — 
if Nature had had more discrimination with 
my mother and father and her mother and father — 
she wouldn't have asked me to go to the Browns — 

to-day being Sunday — 
or I'd surely have gone to the Browns — 

to-day being Sunday — 
and I with a Sunday suit — 
I with a decent job down-town — 
I with a respectable stipend — 

yes, that is — 
I wouldn't be sitting here — 
and she wouldn't be sitting there — 
she telling the Browns about it — 
and I reading Darwin — 
what can he tell me about it ? 

DEREGLE 

In my mind, 

such as it is, 

bassoons hobnob with pelicans. 

The explanation is, 

since there must be an explanation, 

or a truth has, of course, no reason for being, 

or idea, still less, no right to be sounded — 

the explanation is not 



106 BLOOD OF THINGS 

in the interest for the contrasting facts, 

bassoons, very tall, very thin, very black, 

pelicans, very short, very stout, very white, 

any more than one's predilection for 

Voltaire, very tall, very thin, 

Rabelais, very short, very stout, 

is interest for the contrasting facts — 

but the explanation is, if it's this, that 

there's kinship with the exaggeration of 

bassoons and Voltaire high up, 

who see and who sing life as lower, 

and pelicans and Rabelais low down, 

who see and who sing life as higher, 

than it actually is if you're logical 

and true to your middleness of virtues — 

and the explanation is, if not this, that, 

since in my mind, 

such as it is, 

bassoons hobnob with pelicans, 

the deduction must be, 

in lands where there must be deductions, 

that this can but be an idea of some sort, 

and that this screed, 

such as it is, 

is an examination not 

into them so much as it is into me, 

which is, if you reason in rhyme, 

all that a screed can be, 

is it not? 



BLOOD OF THINGS 107 

82° FAHRENHEIT 

To the really humble 

progenitor of Doctor Jurisprudence, 

or even the mere chaste student 

of his miraculous common denominator, 

a glimpse of the 

domestic discipline imposed, 

with such benign artistry, 

by her ladyship, 

the Unapproachable Irreproachable, 

will aiford proof, 

without cost of emotion, 

of the favorite aphorism, 

that the perfecting of the microcosm 

is a closer adumbration of the 

Medico's sacred behest as to ethical procedure 

than the quixotic, out-of-doors 

pursuit of the macrocosm; 

an added glimpse of the 

breakfast repast-demeanor 

of his lordship, 

the Subdued Abducted, 

with a particular notation 

of how his once hot glances 

have become icicles of buttermilk, 

should crystallize wisdom, 

or celibacy, as it happens, 



108 BLOOD OF THINGS 

and therewith leave the heart frozen 
against further palpitation. 

ON DIT 

It starts with a tongue 

hissing into an ear, 

spreading the vacuous 

head to a ball 

on strings of a neck 

legs run with on stilts 

through streets and down lanes, 

bumping folk in their stalls, 

pulling eyes out of sockets 

and tongues out of nests, 

eye-bloated, tongue-bellowed 

head-balloons tossing 

on neck strings and leg stilts 

from roofs down to sidewalks, 

back yards to front stoops, 

some tangled in wash lines 

or telegraph wires, 

only to jerk dangling messages there! 

Comes a sun-prick of light, 
or a moon-wave of sleep, 
heads burst or lie limp 
like fish full of air 
or rats full of water 
in carts or in cellars! 



BLOOD OF THINGS 109 

HELIOTROPE 

" 0, ah, ee. . . . 
I want a man with leopard's eyes and the neck of 

a, neck of a swan, 
I could hang him to the hottest, saddest tree in 

Hell, 
and dance to the, dance to the tune of his writhing 

legs! 
O, ah, ee. . . . 
I'd crawl up beside him though the bark turn to, bark 

turn to thistles and thorns, 
and strangle me with his wild, wild beard till my dead 

body be his dead body, and his dead body be, his 

dead body be. . . ." 

The lady wears the mildest of blue eyes. 

Receives every Friday at ^\e. 

Sips tea as you or I sip tea. . . . 

But her cheek bones are high, 

after the Polish fashion, 

and of late, 

she has been reading 

Przybyszewski, 

bound in heliotrope. 

WEDLOCK 

It can never be 
Angela, 



110 BLOOD OF THINGS 

though hers 
is a body 

for whose possession 
one would barter one's 
inheritance of Heaven. 
Of understanding 
she is as free 
as a mule. 

It can never be 

Allura. 

Her soul shines 

like an owl's eye at night, 

and she plays Ravel 

as one loves to hear Ravel. 

But she is flat-breasted 

and powders her nose. 

One should wed 
solitude. 



BOOMS 

The rooms you leave 

seem more sorrowful than faces ; 

they eye you like animals. 

Their dumb service is past; 
they have no legs to follow you. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 111 

If their courage had a tongue, 

it would have said, go; 

thej have no ears for what you say. . . . 

Monday, 

they will give what they gave you 

to an Italian woman with eight children. 

CARBON-DIOXLDE 

Oh master Americans, 
so supreme over this and all ages 
in lawfully bridging the chasm 
between any two sums with the process, 
indigenous and doubly divine, 

of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division — 
I ask you, how is it, 
that the tiddle-diddle-doo 
breathed into yonder flute 
by the trained carbon-dioxide 
of yonder wandering tatterdemalion — 
how is it that, 

whereas you sanction the barter of 
hens for gold, pigs for gold, ducks for gold, 
by tossing your clinkety-clink 

to the merest squawk-squawk, oint-oint, quack- 
quack — 
that this tiddle-diddle-doo, 
while it doesn't say in words 
audible to the ear or legible to the eye — 



112 BLOOD OF THINGS 

" will jou drop me a penny for beauty ? " — 

how is it, I say, 

that that huckster of the flute, 

who needs but an addition of oxygen 

equal to a subtraction of carbon-dioxide, 

lest he fall and beauty fall with him, 

is thin as a worm and white as a shell? — 

have you no process for pleasure, 

or is pleasure unlawful among you? 

17 + 4^X3 — 

That superannuated, 

moral supernumerary 

of worldly well-being 

Man has sumamed, Conscience, 

is miraculously free from acrimonious shoots 

in the breast of our American Citizen — for — 

when one has a female helpmeet, 

with seventeen graces, become 

a slave of docility, become 

a mummied puppet which bobs to us, 

its mantelpiece Buddha, 

for each nod we vouchsafe or glance awry, 

which knows what dishes, what cutlery, what napery 

should adorn the pabulum board, 

and what proportion of calories and carbohydrates 

the respective hours of eight, noon and six 

should proffer for the god's health and propitiation, 



BLOOD OF THINGS 113 

which knows how near the moon his pillow should 
rise, 

what wink of the morning to whisper, 

"Cuckoo!"— and — 

when one has a mission domicile 

snuggling three more dormitories 

than his Neighbor Citizen's bungalow, 

plus three more Persian rugs, 

plus three more Morris chairs, 

plus three more sculptures cut in marble, not in 
clay — and — 

when one has thus built and prevailed 

through one's genius 

in the addition, subtraction, multiplication and di- 
vision 

of the numerals of Arabia 

as applied to the bartering of corn in Nebraska — 
and — 

when one has done all this and all that 

under the motherly approbation 

of that old dowager and monitress 

over the good and evil conduct of 

hens, caterpillars, crocodiles, giraffes, brook-trout, 

sea-urchins, pebbles, nasturtiums and weeping wil- 
lows, 

Man in his discriminate affection has surnamed. 
Law — 

who is there in our New England, Middle West or 
California, 



114 BLOOD OF THINGS 

who dares even dream disapprobation 

when our American Citizen 

remarks from the depths of his ease, 

to his Neighbor Citizen 

in the throes of his envy — " yes — 

it's a fine day — 

trading was excellent — 

my wife's well — 

the verandah's newly painted — 

we're both fond of blue — 

the latest? we're calling him Archibald 

each man to his duty — 

I'm not looking for credit — yes — 

I'm voting the Republican ticket ! " 

SUCH AND SUCH 

It is very easy 

for a dead emotion 

to be very wise: 

it is very easy 

for a dead emotion 

to prognosticate, 

if such and such begin 

between such and such, 

such and such eventuates, 

perforce beyond further peradventure 

ergo, you must not love. 

It must be very nice 

to feel nothing, know everything, 



BLOOD OF THINGS 115 



and be able to sit 

the chair of philosophy, 

or is it anthropology, 

or is it psycho-analysis, 

in an American university : 

I should like so much 

to be able to say, 

perforce beyond further peradventure, 

ergo, you must not live. 

But it is very hard 

for a such and such 

to be very wise. 

FIFTH AVENUE 

I sat on the front seat 

of a Fifth Avenue bus — 
an event — not significant : 
I sat on the front seat, 

thinking, reflecting, meditating — 
on my importance to the world, 

or — importance to myself ? — 
an inquiry — not significant — 

but significant to me, 
as I sat on that front seat, 

reflecting back, 

meditating forward — 

thinking about 
the significance of the sale 

of a poem I had sold. 



116 BLOOD OF THINGS 

for five green leaves, 

to an editor — 
and which I would see 

in his paper to-morrow — 
and which his public 

would see and might read — 

million people, two million — 
and three or four of them, 

blessed with vision, 
might hail and remember, as significant — 

and me as important, 

not self-important: 
and I sat, meditating forward, 

toward a later sun-day, 
when I — yellow leaves richer — why not ? — 
might be sitting — why not ? — 

on the front seat 

of a runabout, 

or an automobile, 

or a limousine — 
recognized — pointed out — universally cheered 

by this world of twin sidewalks — 
instead of unrecognized — igTiored — alone — 

on the top of a bus, 
my thinking, reflecting, meditating 

bowing low — very low 
to hoping, speculating, imagining. . . . 

when of a sudden — 
with a clatter before and a clatter behind — 



BLOOD OF THINGS 117 

with a screaming before and a screeching behind — 
with universal vociferation fore and aft — 
with a fellow in a silk hat, 

higher than Pike's Peak — 

on the back seat ! — 
a U-S-boat chasing a U-boat? — 
whizzed by — shot by — vanished — 
seen — not seen — heard — not heard ! 
He wasn't I — in fancy there — 

self-important grown important ! 
He wasn't I — in reincarnation of 

somebody like Homer's ghost — 

somebody like Shakespeare's — 

somebody like Whitman's I 
He was in reality — in the bone and flesh — 

somebody like Wilson! 
He was indeed — Woodrow Wilson! 

This ... is to-morrow. ... 

I'm still . . . alive. . . . 

but no longer . . . dreaming. . . . 

PROPAGANDA 

Under one arm, 

she carried a dog, 

dog-docile dog, 
under the other, 

she squeezed a cat, 

cat-squirming cat; 
top of her hat, 



118 BLOOD OF THINGS 

she'd tied a cage, 

cage for a squirrel, 

squirrel-chat squirrel; 
top of her back, 

a bundle, 

enormous enough 

to take in a household; 
behind her, 
in front, 

on both sidewalks, 
in the gutter, 
and even from windows 
and veritable housetops, 

something like a million folk, 

so it seemed, crowded, 

thinking jostling absurdities, 

grinning grotesque good-fellowship, 

nudging strange ribs with strange elbows ; 
and methought: 

Ludicrous creature, 

you do more, 

unconsciously, 

towards cementing folk, 

out in the open, 
than a congress of 

self-conscious, 

senatorial, 

ambassadorial, 

regal and 



BLOOD OF THINGS 119 



presidential 
orations, 
concerning leagues and the like — 
behind closed doors. 



CHESS PLAYERS 

Chess players live in old damp basements, 

fifty or a hundred to the basement: 

old damp basements are chess players' homes, 

fifty or a hundred to the home. 

They play there, eat there, smoke there, sleep 

there — 
don't sleep on divans, settees, ottomans — 
sleep on the tables, or just underneath, 
or half the body on a chair, the other on the floor. 
(If you fancy me a raconteur, 
try Grand Street off the Bowery !) 

Never a proprietor of old chess dungeons 

shoos away a neophyte of Caissa's : 

lodging-house etiquette is fully deserved 

by a masonry as venerable as Job's. 

Or set aside Caissa, patron saint of chess, 

and analyze the problem with your New York eye: 

first of all, these denizens have no other home; 

secondly, they're stolid and so dead a weight at 

night, 
one and two and three o'clock a. m. the time they're 

through, 

120 



BLOOD OF THINGS 121 

he'd need a dozen wheelbarrows to cart them away; 
and where should he dump them? — down an alley 

or a sewer? — 
devotees are lost if they ever touch the world; 
he'd grow a silly bankrupt if he even aired them out ; 
last of all, they're old, older than patriarchs, 
older than the bible and as old as Israel; 
turn them out of doors, he'd be turning out his 

race; 
a gentile " goy " might do it, but you'll never see 

a Jew! 
(If you care to test a creed, 
try Grand Street off the Bowery!) 

Chess players squeeze out a mite of livelihood, 
squeeze each other for the stake, a nickel a game: 
twelve or thirteen hours buy one's coffee, one's 

doughnuts ; 
satiety this against the hunger chessdom breeds: 

but — 
you've got to be adroit enough and shrewd enough; 
scholarship won't do; you must have imagination; 
and then you'll need the third and hardest, only 

age can forge, 
courage to make the move you've felt your brain 

conceive : 
but — 
if you haven't got the brain to beat him, do it 

with your tongue; 



122 BLOOD OF THINGS 

scare him from the winning coup, sneak his thought 

elsewhere : 
call him " potzer," " nebich," " kibitz "; 
if that trio don't confound him, 
sneer him " goy " ; the weird vernacular 
has always this to addle Jews: 

but — 
if you haven't got the tongue to thwart him, do 

it with your beard; 
unless your beard is long enough though, wait until 

it grows ; 
then let it wave across the field like a willow in the 

wind, 
then hover near a corner like a broom that's done 

its day; 
and when he blares " schachmatt " at you, you raise 

the elfin growth, 
disclose a rook he couldn't see which makes off 

with his queen, 
and twists the mate against him like a dagger in 

the dark ! 
(You sneer me, historian? — 
try Grand Street off the Bowery!) 

Chess players vie in old damp basements, 

till some of them have nickels and some of them 

have none: 
as long as some are still alive and only some are 

dead. 



BLOOD OF THINGS 123 

old damp basements are chess players' homes. 
When chess players die, they lay down their kings, 
do it with a noble touch, if they've learned the game 

at all: 
for " a move's a move, you can never retract," 
the mystic law from first to last, beginner up to 

peer ! 
Consider cross-eyed Spielmann who resigned two 

dawns ago ; 
Spielmann knew Caissa's word; he'd played her 

eighty years: 
played her as a boy when he won from Lilienkron, 
played her at the close when he lost to Lilienthal; 
played her through the way between from 
Rosenzweig to Ziegenschwarz, Kalinski to Rabino- 

witz; 
and more than played her on that crag, the night 

he beat lame Steinitz, 
little squatty champion for five and twenty years, 
Goliath of chessdom, till David Lasker brought him 

down! 
It may have been an accident, Goliath fast 

asleep 
from defeating all the masters and the tyros of this 

world — 
but " Spielmann once beat Steinitz ! " was the 

epitaph that dawn 
as they stretched him on two tables for the first 

move to the grave: 



124 BLOOD OF THINGS 

" a doddering dufFer like Lilienthal beat Spiel- 



mannr 



? 



Caissa, our Caissa, it was who queened that pawn I " 
They dug their clinking nickels out of vests and 

up from trousers 
to dig a checkered plot for Spielmann who beat 

Steinitz ! 
(No Potter's Field takes king or pawn 
from Grand Street off the Bowery J) 



MISS SAL'S MONOLOGUE 

To Mr, Bert Williams, the Mastersinger of 
Vaudeville 

Come, get up, Sal, 

peel off another, 

peel still another day 

off the calendar — 
come, get along, 

peel them for noon-time — 

potatoes — 

peel them for night-time — 

potatoes — 

some folk like them for breakfast, 

peel some for breakfast — 

potatoes — 

slip your knife between their 

skin and flesh 

and mind, don't go slipping it 

between your own — 

potatoes — 
if Mr. Columbus hadn't been what he was, 

had he been what you are, Sal, 

he'd never have felt the world round, 

he'd have felt it a 

125 



126 BLOOD OF THINGS 

potato — 

crooked and wrinkled, 

never the same shape twice, 

no shape at all, 

full of bumps and crevices, 

warts like mountain peaks — 

no place for a man in his senses 

to go crawling, exploring — 

he'd have seen it what it is, a 

potato, 

and another, 

and then another, 

and then still another — 

and he'd have stayed at home like you, 

peeling, 

peeling potatoes, 

a potato peeling potatoes — 
go, peel them off your back, 

off your arms, 

off your hips, 

off your legs, 

off your feet — 

clothes — 

clothes — 
when you call me in the moniing, Mr. Rooster, 

don't call me Sal any more, 

I don't know that name any more, 

I don't answer to it any more, 

somebody else whose name is Sal, 



BLOOD OF THINGS 127 

let her answer to it, mine isn't Sal — 

if you've got to get me up again, you call out, 

Potato — 
go, peel them off the bed, 

quilt, 

counterpane, 

sheet, 

and get under and dream — 

yes, be fooled a little more — 

yes, I know you, Mr. Bed — 

you're a nice soft fellow to lie with — 

you and your spooky talk, 

telling me your yams 

fit to turn a nigger white — 

about potato goblins 

coming and going on match-sticks for legs, 

they doing the cake-walk, 

me playing the tune — 

" peel. Honey, I'm peeling off my heart for you, 

so peel away your heart for me, do ! " — 
I told you, Mr. Rooster, never to call me again — 

told you my name is Potato — 

told you not to call out Sal any more — 

told you to get up someone else by that 
name — 
come, get up, Potato — 

yes, that's me — 

peel open your eyes — 

yes, I'll peel — 



128 BLOOD OF THINGS 

come, peel off another, 

still another to-day — 

Mr. To-day, yes, I know — 

don't have to tell me about you, 

I know you, Man — 

and yesterday, 

and day before yesterday, 

and day before day before yesterday, 

and to-morrow, 

and day after to-morrow, 

and day after day after to-morrow — 

your whole family, Mr. Man, 

the whole of old Mr. Noah's ark of you 

to-days — 
and day after day after day after to-morrow, 

when I die — 

I know that too — 

laid out, a skinned potato in a tub — 

it being my to-day — 

you can't tell me, 

I know that they'll peel off some earth, 

and stick me under, 

and that'll be an end to peeling — 

I know that too — 

yes — 

no — no — 
not if the wind use the rain, 

Mr. Wind use Mr. Rain 



BLOOD OF THINGS 129 



for still another knife 

to come peeling some more — 

oh Mr. Lord — 

oh good Mr. Lord — 

peel open your eye — 

peel Mr. Cloud off Mr. Sun 

before Mr. Wind bring Mr. Rain 

to come peeling me from under 

the skin of Mr. Sod — 

oh dear Mr. Lord — 

if they do, Mr. Lord — 

if they've got to, Mr. Lord — 

if thej^'ve got to get me up, 

it being my to-day — 

and you've got to call me, 

me that's used to being called — 

don't call out, Sal, 

just call out. Potato — 

whisper Mr. Gabriel to whisper, 

Potato — 

or I simply can't promise 
nobody, 
no-day, 
no -how — 

to peel the worms off my body, 
and the body off my soult 



CROWNS AND CRONIES 

VISION 

You have yet to attain 

contemplation of a person 

without intervention of your own — 
and so, 

you have not beheld your own. 

You hold the glass, 

face to you, back to him — 
not having felt 

the earth hold its sea 

sky-ward, 

the sky hold its sun 

earth-ward. 

It needs 

but a twist of reflection 

to bring recognition around — 
but that needs 

the titan-wrist 

pulse of the earthquake 

and pulse of the meteor 
of heredity 
and humility, 

130 



BLOOD OF THINGS 131 



whose child is 
self-annihilation. 



CRONIES 



You there, 
with a quill in space, 
stroke against time, 
scratch on the ball, 

one-two-three : 
the ball revolves, yes, 
around another, yes, 

and you then, 
quill, stroke, scratch, 

one- two-three, 
vanish, yes, 
no space, no time, 
no ball, no you, no: 

except in 

me here, 
with a quill in space, 
stroke against time, 
scratch on the ball, 

one-two-three, 
so! 



INDOOES 



On a day like this, 

when nobody dresses his outdoor best, 



132 BLOOD OF THINGS 

except some fop with a lady to woo 

(this time with wheedling of satin), 

when the bickering rain 

is satin enough 

for the sky to come wooing the earth 

(last time with streamers of sun-down) : 

on a day so dull, 

it is best for a man 

(this time with nothing to win, be the mood) 

to resign the game 

to dandies and skies 

and, sans advancement 

of earth's way or woman's, 

to go to the nook 

of some rhymester's book — 

providing his noise isn't tiresome, too, 

wooing Dame Art with demode wiles. 



TO THE OTHERS 



On, crusaders ! 
Whither? 
Nowhere ! 
The past? 
Sneers ! 
Present ? 
Snarls ! 
Future? 
Snubs ! 
Fodder? 



BLOOD OF THINGS 133 



Cocoanuts ! 

Where? 

In trees ! 

How? 

At jour heads ! 

Do? 

You! 

On, crusaders ! 



TO w. c. w. M. D, 



There has been 

another death. 

This time, 

I bring it to you. 

You are kind, 

brutal, 

you know 

how to lower 

bodies. 

I ask only 

that the rope 

isn't silk, 

(silk doesn't break) 

nor thread, 

(thread does.) 

If it lifts 

and lowers 

common things, 

it will do. 



134 BLOOD OF THINGS 

TO A SMALL SCULPTOR 

Thought 

being 

in, not out — 

your eyes 

look 

in, not out — 

(they do, 

that's what scares me!) 

and though 

your 

body is small, 

the thought it holds 

is bigger than the moon — 

(it is, 

that scares me more!) 

now, if you 

could look 

out, not in — 

and could get 

me 

into your eyes, 

into your thought — 

(I'm small, 

though my 

hope is bigger than the moon!) 

and could 

get that 

thought into 



BLOOD OF THINGS 1S5 

your fingers, 

and your fingers 

in and out, 

around and over the clay — 

I'd 

sit for you always — 

(no, if 

that could be — 

that'd scare me most I) 

I think I'll run away! 

GREEK OR PERHAPS ROMAN EPIGRAM 

Cynthia 

worked along the principle 

of the annihilation of all 

which doesn't contribute to the one-self, 

the principle of hatred, 

a biological principle ; 

Cleon, 

along the principle 

of the accumulation of all 

which can possibly contribute to the all-self, 

the principle of love, 

a biological principle; 

(the second 

might be written first) 

so the gods, 

who work along the principle 

of the annihilation of the all-but-one 



136 BLOOD OF THINGS 

and the accumulation of the all-for-one, 

the principle of life, 

the biological principle, 

the gods parted them; 

(the third, too, 

might be written first) 

especially 

if you are a 

Cynthia and Cleon 

plus a penchant 

for writing 

Greek or perhaps 

Roman epigrams 

out of the sorrows 

due to the arrows of 

Juno and Jove — 

or Jove and Juno — 

whichever it is. 

SCREEN dance: FOR RIHANI 

Its posterior pushing 

its long thin body, 

a procession of waves lifting its head — 

a green caterpillar: 

Its roots digging and drinking, 
the sap driving outward and up, 
shaking its yellow head — 
the mountain top of a tree: 



BLOOD OF THINGS 137 

Idling along in the blue, 

an easy white holiday, 

swimming away towards the rim of the bowl — 

a cloud: 

Dipping and twirling, 

soaring, floating, following after — 

a butterfly. 

TO WHITMAN 

Monster ! 

You would take me, 

tiny me, 

in your huge paws 

and scrunch me? 

Child! 

I can take you, 

tiny you, 

between my thumbs 

and love you. 

Come on ! 

RED CHANT 

There are veins in my body, Fenton Johnson — 
veins that sway and dance because of blood that is 

red; 
there are veins in your body, Fenton Johnson — 
veins that sway and dance because of blood that is 

red. 
Let a master prick me with his pin — 



188 BLOOD OF THINGS 

the bubble of blood shows red; 
Let a master prick you with his pin — 
the bubble of blood shows red. 
Let a woman love me, 
let a womsin love you — 
the blood that rises is red. 
Let my gray eye turn to yours, 
let your brown eye turn to mine — 
the blood behind them is red. 
Let my skin wrinkle to a grin, 
let your skin wrinkle to a grin — 
red blood inspired the wrinkles. 
Let me think of a spirit, 
let you think of a spirit — 
the bodies that nourished the thought are red. 
Let me think of loving you, 
let you think of loving me — 
the hearts that nourished the thought are red. 
Let me say it as well — why shouldn't I? — 
let you say it as well — why shouldn't you? — 
the tongues that say it are red. 
Let me sing you a song — is it foolish? — 
let you sing me a song — is it foolish? — 
songs and singers are red. 
Let us go arm in arm down State Street — 
let them cry, the easily horrified: 
" Gods of our fathers, 

look at the white man chumming with the black 
man ! " 



BLOOD OF THINGS 139 

Let us nudge each other, you and I — 
without humilitj^, without defiance: 
" We are red," let us answer ! 

THE NOBILITY 

Behind blinking lids of banter, 

playing at butterfly, 

profundity digs his cave. 

Careless of her weak yellow gums, 

sorrow smiles like a toad, 

then snarls an insipid ditty. 

Not unruefully, 

the aged night trees raise their petticoats ; 

their skinny white knees protrude 

and flirt with the fireflies. 

The earth snores in his sleep 

as the worms, squirming his brain, 

weave a nightmare of glee. 

For a noble breath or two, 

scorn is god. ... 

The river plays on, on his flute. 

The stupid mountains shrug their shoulders. 

The elephant moon goes, wagging his head. 



SEI/F-ESTEEM 



I know a man 
who takes his art 
as he takes his coffee 



140 BLOOD OF THINGS 

with a complacent lumpling of sugar. 

He studies her 

as he does his neighbors — 

with more or less equal emotion. 

He doesn't grovel to her; 

nor does he fall to snivel worship. 

They fence with watchful wit 

and then put arms about each other; 

gravely, impersonally. 

I esteem this man beyond all others. 

POETRY 

Ladislaw the critic 

is five feet six inches high, 

which means 

that his eyes 

are five feet two inches 

from the ground, 

which means, 

if you read him your poem, 

and his eyes lift to five feet 

and a trifle more than two inches, 

what you have done 

is Poetry — 

should his eyes remain 

at five feet two inches, 

you have perpetrated prose, 

and do his eyes stoop 

— which heaven forbid ! — 



BLOOD OF THINGS 141 



the least trifle below 

five feet two inches, 

you 

are an unspeakable adjective. 

PATRIOT 

This man bleeds 

for a tune 

the lightest wind 

can destroy from mortal ken. 

Out of himself, 

he has cut a reed — 

and into it, 

he breathes rhythms. 

What makes him blow, 

on a day when the clarion rules, 

is an imaginary nation, 

with one creed, 

and one language, 

and a ghost for queen, 

who pins him no praise when he dies 

breathing rhythm to the last. 



1914 

PASTS 

Science 

drove his plough, 

so straight, 

so strong, 

so true, 

deep and far 

into the past 

and turned it topsy-turvy. 

Now, 

we are frantically busy, 

with all of our many hands, 

sowing the next past. 

CHRISTIANITY 

When men 

stand men 

against trees 

to be shot 
: why don't they lift their arms out : 
: parallel with the earth and the sky 

are traitors 

and deserters 

to a lesser 

142 



BLOOD OF THINGS 143 

love to be 
deprived of 
this simple 
final comfort 
by traitors 
and deserters 
to a greater? 



YOU THEEEI 

Hey there, you there, 

you of the skulking, round-shouldered eyes : 

Twist your eyes over here — 

give them a slap on the back so they turn — 

a j ab in the ribs so they straighten — 

eh? no, don't put them in uniforms — 

this isn't a matter of dress-parade, 

of volunteers, conscription, 

but a matter of undress-parade, 

the moment for saluting the nude! 

Ah there — I knew you could do it — now : 

open the lips of your eyes — 

breathe the truth of your heart 

just once through your eyes — 

the truth in you, you have truth in you, 

the truth you breathe from one breath to another 

breathe it forth from the crypt of you 

out through the mouth of your eyes — 

open them wider, wider, let the horizon hear ! 

You dread your truth ? — 



144 BLOOB OF THINGS 

then fling it out, kick it out — 

one can't soil the seat of the pants of a truth — 

give it a full-legged, bouncing kick — 

or, as well if you must, breathe it out, 

carefully, fastidiously, shameful phrase after 

phrase — 
breathe the truth of your heart 
just once through your eyes t 
Oh yes, I know — 

we'll treat you like a poaching nigger — 
burn you the way they did Joan of Arc — 
poke your carcass with the boot of a lie 
stronger than any truth of the ages — 
and mouth frothing spit for your epitaph ! 
Eyes — shoulder arms — ready — take aim — 
shoot us your truth just once from your depths: 
shoot us the name of your country ! 
Eh? No! Humanity? 
Corporal! 

Line up your firing squad! 
That straight-bodied soul is a traitor! 
Hellow there, you there — 
and Christ'll mouth open your eyes with a kiss 1 

THE NEXT DRINK 

It's a marvelous age that we live in I 

(It is, sir!) 

In Greece, they fought with mere javelins and spears 1 

(Child's play!) 



BLOOD OF THINGS 145 

In later times — well, what of Bonaparte? 

(Waterloo?) 

And the poor pretty handful who fell? 

(Tin soldiers!) 

When you think of the motors and aeroplanes, 

(The dreadnoughts !) 

and the millions of men in the field at one time, 

(Ten million dead!) 

and the seas and the seas of bullets and blood ! 

(And the gold!) 

Yes, the twenty-two millions a day that it costs ! 

( Vanderbilt's fortune!) 

Why, we're right to be proud, sir, and happy and 

gay} 

(That we are!) 

It's our duty, we should be, we should be ! 

(We should!) 

Come, have the next drink on me I 

CONJUGATION 

. . . now, let you listen to : 

kilHng folk 

is still another way of 

killing rats — 

rats dying of feeding on festering wounds 

containing poisoning resulting from firing — 

or testing the sentence according to grammar — 

an instructive experiment for the class — 

if I err, let some scholar correct me — 



146 BLOOD OF THINGS 

the participle, killing, 

is derived from the active verb, 

infinitive, to kill, 

the conjugation of which is, 

kill, killed, killing, kiUed — 

kill, the action of somebody firing, 

killed, the action on somebody fired upon, 

killing, the action on somebody else by somebody 

fired upon, 
killed, the action on somebody else by somebody fired 

upon — 
kill and killing standing in the active voice, 
killed and killed in the passive : 
now, let me hear — 
since the theorem of it duplicates 
the theorem of the verb, to kill — 
I expect an accurate response — 
let me hear your conjugation 
of the verb, to feed, in the sentence, 
feeding folk 
is still another way of 
feeding rats — 
or rather, if you prefer it — 
feeding rats 
is still another way of 
feeding folk — 

the order of action is immaterial — - 
the conjugation, in either case, the same — 
now, let me hear. ... 



BLOOD OF THINGS 147 



ROCOCO KINSMEN 



My two old brothers are growing older. 
Soon they'll be hobbling to crutches or canes. 
My two blinking brothers are well-nigh blind. 
Soon I'll be leading them, they who lead me. 

The heart, he says wistfully : 

" What has become of that sprite, 

that child with the head of a crocus, 

folk used to call with a short pretty name ? 

You recall how he ran to them, kicking a gigue? 
The head, he answers wistfully : 

" I no longer see him, brother. 

He must have fallen in the storm last night." 
Wistfully, the heart : 

" Who were the ones that buried him? 

Were they kind, can you say ? " 
Wistfully, the head : 

" I do not know, brother. 

I hearkened a terrible curse. 

But it might have been the wind 1 " 
Wistfully, the heart : 

" Can we not beg from man to man? 

Some courteous sir might give us the tale? 

We'll sing him our rondel, and not ask a sou ! " 

" It may be too late for our roundelay, 

it might sound old-fashioned, 

as dead as a dirge," 



148 BLOOD OF THINGS 

wistfully, the head. 
Wistfully, the heart: 

" We could lift our voices from plaintive to loud, 

and strike new crooked rhythms on timbal and 
lute?'^ 

" New crooked rhythms might bring us an ear — 

your thought is j ocund — let us try," 
wistfully, the head. 
Wistfully, the heart : 

" Let us ask this queer fellow to show us the mar- 
ket — 

an errand like this — " 

" An errand like this — 

must look innocent, cheerful — " 
wistfully, the head. 

I answered quite wistfully, as wistfully as they : 

" I wiU try," I said. 

My rococo kinsmen are stupid and slow. 
If 3^ou must kill each other, can't you do it with- 
out hate? 
They'd nod a little, bow low, caper and grin ! 



AEEOWS 



Let the body of me quiver 
men shoot it at men — 
an arrow at an arrow — 
I an arrow, he an arrow — 
he the other me ! — 



BLOOD OF THINGS 149 



It will play boomerang — 

the soul of me 

meet the soul of me — 

touch, turn, shoot back, 

pierce the men who say, kill ! — 

Shoot bodies with hatred — 
the soul shoots back love ! — 
God says so, 
each time He writes a new dawn ! 

NEED I SAY, WHERE? 

My country 

doesn't hate 

people, 

but elements in people — 

my country'd kill these. 

Nay, my country'd 

take these 

to a place it knows, 

somewhere — 

need I say, where ? — 

and have them 

playfully nurse, 

playfully nursed by, 

their kindred. 

Twins love twins. 



INITIALS 

He goes along, 

in his thin flesh, 

narrow bones, 

slow blood, 

old hat, 

old clothes, 

old shoes, 
singing for love, battling for love. 
He will go down, 

in thinner flesh, 

narrower bones, 

slower blood, 

older hat, 

older clothes, 

older shoes, 
battling for love, dying for love. 
He will be put away, 

in a thin box, 

down a narrow slit, 

of the old earth, 
growing for love, rising for love : 
his initials carved 

on a thin seed, 

narrow seed, 

150 



BLOOD OF THINGS 151 

slow seed, 
the carving as slow 

as he was slow, 
carving his K on a song. 



WORD 

When the old man in me 

tweaks the sleeve of the lad 

and whispers, " fine " 

if ever it comes, 

that is the word I'll bend to. 



A SELECTED LIST 
IN BELLES-LETTRES 

PUBLISHED BY 

NICHOLAS L. BROWN 

NEW YORK 



Hermann Bahr 

THE MASTER. A drama in three acts. Adapted for the 
American stage by Benjamin F. Glazer. Cloth, $1.00. 

John Lloyd Balderston 

THE GENIUS OF THE MARNE. A play in three scenes with 
an introduction by George Moore. Boards, $1.20. 

Mitchell S. Buck 

EPHEMERA. Hellenic prose poems. Printed on Japan paper, 
and bound in half-vellum. Gilt top. Edition limited to 750 
copies. $2.25. 

THE SONGS OF PHRYNE. All that is known of Phryne's 
life and career is told in these twenty-nine songs. Printed 
on Alexandra antique laid paper, with cover design in four 
colors. GOc. 

BOOK REPAIR AND RESTORATION. A manual of prac- 
tical suggestions for Bibliophiles. With 17 illustrations. 
Edition limited to 1,000 copies. $2.00. 

Lieut. James R. Crowe 

PAT CROWE, AVIATOR. These letters from France form 
one of the most interesting books produced by the war. 
Tliey have been collected and edited by W. B. Chase, the 
well known musical critic. With portrait of the author. 
Cloth, $1.50. 

Donald Evans 

IRONICA. Mr. Evans has written these poems with a new 
dignity and a true maturity. Mist gray boards, $1.00. 

SONNETS FROM THE PATAGONIAN. This book opened the 
Modernists' war against musty literary traditions. Printed 
on Japan paper. Edition limited to 750 copies. Toyogami 
boards, $1.50. 

TW^O DEATHS IN THE BRONX. A series of pitiless pho- 
tographs of profligate men and women who fritter away life, 
seeking new pleasures, new sensations. Boards, $1.00. 



NINE POEMS FROM A VALETUDINARIUM. The arch- 
attitudinist suddenly becomes grave and simple and writes 
in a mood of supreme reverence. Boards, $1.00. 

DISCORDS. The sixty or more poems that make up the vol- 
ume offer vivid glimpses of the stress and strain of modern 
life. Boards, $1.00. 

Paul Gauguin 

NOA NOA. Translated by 0. F. Theis. The great French 
painter's own story of his flight from civilization and his 
life among the natives of Tahiti, in the South Seas. With 
ten reproductions from paintings of Gauguin, in half-tone. 
Boards, $2.00. 

Alfred Kreymborg 

BLOOD OF THINGS. A second book of Free Forms. More 
than a hundred new poems in every mood and every form. 
Greater in every way, even broader in its contacts, deeper in 
its emotional reactions, richer in its exquisite artistry, than 
Mushrooms, and therefore destined to be even more popular. 
Boards, $2.00. 

Ame Norrevang 

THE WOMAN AND THE FIDDLER. A play in three acts. 
Translated from the Norwegian by Mrs. Herman Sandby. 
Cloth, 75c. ^ 

Stanislaw Przybyszewski 
SNOW. A play in four acts by one of the foremost writers of 
modern Europe. Boards, $1.50. 

Pitts Sanborn 
VIE DE BORDEAUX. A volume of poems in English. In 
free verse the author has interpreted the soul of old Bor- 
deaux in the hour of war. Boards, $1.00. 

August Strindberg 

FROKEN JULIE (Countess Julia). Translated from the 
Swedish. A naturalistic tragedy. Cloth, 75c. 

MOTHERLOVE. One of Strindberg's most efl'ective one-act 
plays. Second edition. Boards, 35c. 

SWANWHITE. A fairy drama, translated by Francis J. 
Ziegler. Second edition. Cloth, 75c. 

THE CREDITOR. A tragic comedy. A searching psycho- 
logical study of the divorce question. Cloth, 75c. 



John Addington Symonds 

LAST AND FIRST. The first appearance in book form of 
"The New Spirit" and "Arthur Hugh Clough," the latest 
and the earliest essays of a great critic and humanist. 
Cloth, $1.50. 

Grover Theis 

NUMBERS, Five one-act plays that will be welcomed by the 
lover of modern drama. Boards, $1.35. 

Leo N. Tolstoi 

THE LIVING CORPSE. Translated by Anna Monossovitch 
Evarts, from the only authorized Russian edition based on 
the MSS. in the possession of Countess A. L. Tolstoi. A 
drama in six acts and twelve tableaux. Produced as " Re- 
demption " it has been one of the greatest successes on the 
New York stage in recent years. Cloth, $1.00. 

Frank Wedekind 

THE AWAKENING OF SPRING. A tragedy of childhood 
dealing with the sex question in its relationship to the 
education of the young. Sixth edition. Cloth, $1.25. 

SUCH IS LIFE. A satiric play with mediaeval background 
but modern significance. Second edition. Cloth, $1.25. 

RABBI EZRA AND THE VICTIM. Two impressive sketches 
full of color and action. Boards, 35c. 

THE GRISLEY SUITOR. A remarkable study in grim hu- 
mor. Boards, 35c. 



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